Scribblings from the Mitchy Side

Had a lovely few hours at the above today, at Knebworth House. Spent a fortune, of course, but that's why I went to the cash machine beforehand. When the cash was gone, I stopped buying, even if the stall took cards :) I have learned from experience how to control my spending at these things :D

It was a lovely day but seriously windy. The stall holders inside the big tents must have been thanking their lucky stars! I perused everything, bought some meat and cheeses and watched a cookery demonstration by Matt Tebbutt. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon :)

And tonight it's the last night of the Masters! Eee! *happy is*

Here are some pics from the festival. The owl is a Barn Owl, one of my favourites :) The lone smoked sausage above the pack is a pork sausage with goats cheese. Nyom :D

Yesterday I went back to the Wellington for lunch, to scout the place out. Verdict - lovely place to sit and have a pot of tea of an afternoon, but very pricey food-wise for what is largely pub grub, albeit very nice pub grub. I had whitebait to start and posh ham, egg and chips for main, both of which were good, but with coffee and a diet coke, the bill came to just under £20, which isn't cheap for a pub. Still, as I said, nice place to loaf and have afternoon tea :)

Today I went to the football where Stevenage managed to claw back for a 2-2 draw with Tranmere. We looked a bit ragged but our injury list meant that we didn't have any strikers available so there was an air of make-shift about the team. We didn't play particularly well so I was actually relieved we got out with a draw. The playoffs are still within reach but we need to start winning, not drawing.

Went to the kitchen earlier to cook pasta for tea, got the water on, it was nearly boiling and....I realised I was out of pasta. *facepalms* This is such an unusual event in my house that it never occurred to me to check if I had any! So there was an emergency store run where I discovered that apparently a Good Friday 2 hours before the store closes is a pretty good time to shop. The "OMG WE MUST SELL THIS NOW LEST YE DIIIEEE!" counter was stuffed to overflowing and I scored a tuna steak for 19p, some fresh mozzarella for the same, and several snack packs of apple slices and grapes for 25p each :D And I scored at the Hot Deli counter too, where I got 5 stout coated chicken thighs for 50p and 4 large pork sausages for 80p :) The mozzarella and a couple of the chicken thighs were lovely with the pasta I was eventually able to cook. *grins*

A colleague is getting married next week, so today a bunch of us from work went out for afternoon tea by way of celebration. Oooh it was lovely!

The hotel was the West Lodge Park just south of Potters Bar and it's gorgeous! Very posh, I was glad I'd bothered to smarten up :) We all had the afternoon tea and it was not only delicious, it was huge! I had *deep breath* 3 finger sandwiches (smoked salmon, cucumber and egg mayo), 2 scones (with jam and clotted cream), 1 mixed fruit tartlet, 1 shot glass of a hazelnut praline thing, 1 macaroon and a slice of battenburg cake. I had everything except the battenburg because I'm not a fan :)



My one mistake was selecting Darjeeling for my first choice of tea. Bleurg! The smell was horrific - I could have sworn I've had Darjeeling before and I don't remember it being like that! So I suspect either I'm misremembering which tea I had or it wasn't Darjeeling :P I had one cup and then switched to Breakfast Tea in relief :)

It was a great afternoon and I'm definitely taking jenni411 there when she visits in April :D

Fabulous birthday meal (shaddup, I can make my birthday last at least a week if I try!) tonight with a colleague at work. Much happy yakking and scoffing of amazing food ensued.

I started with the smoked salmon with honey-roasted beetroot and vodka & lime creme fraiche. My colleague had the salt and pepper squid, which she let me try as I'd not had it before. Mmm! Tasty, 's going on my list of things to have again. Then she had a gigantic burger, with added stilton and bacon, with fries and I had the slow roasted pork belly in sticky ginger glaze, with black pudding, mashed potato and green beans. Soooo good!! Finally we "forced" ourselves to have dessert: I went for the cheeseboard while she had the mini-treacle tart with coffee. And I had a Irish coffee as a treat.

We may have waddled out of the restaurant. Slowly :D

All round, a lovely evening *happy is*

I done made soup! Potato, onion and cheddar. Mistakes were made, to be fair, but the end result was still tasty, so 'm counting that as a win!

Things wot I learned:-

1) Don't get distracted when simmering soup
2) You need a decent amount of liquid, especially if you're going to get distracted.
3) Milk can loosen up a soup that's fallen victim to items 1 and 2 :D

Also, I must go easier on the pepper. But I got the garlic about right *breathes fumes, peels wallpaper* Heh heh heh.

I don't really have the patience to get into cooking. I hate faffing about in the kitchen as a general rule, although possibly if my kitchen was more organised and I had more counter space, I'd feel a little differently. Must work on that. Anyway, the point is, when I can be arsed, I don't do too badly in the cooking stakes. I made a cottage pie from scratch last night, cooked it today and if I say it as shouldn't, dang it was tasty!

Glorious weather here today, perfect for watching football. It was the first League home game of the season at Stevenage today and I proudly tore out the first season ticket from my shiny season ticket book :D The game wasn't bad, finished 1-1, which was probably fair. Carlisle scored first, very late on, so a draw was good for us! We didn't look as crisp as we did last Tuesday, when we thumped AFC Wimbledon 3-1 in the League Cup match, but then they're a division below us. Carlisle were sterner stuff and it did show that we've still got an awful lot of work to do. Still, we didn't buckle, we fought back for the draw so there's hope. :)

And it was glorious to sit in the sun and bask happily!

Afterwards, after a brief pit stop to check the cricket and pick up my Kindle, I toddled over to The Stanborough and treated myself to a steak dinner. jenni411 is entirely to blame for this, having mentioned earlier in the week she was watching a cookery show where they were doing steak with peppercorn sauce. She went out for steak last night :D Today I had the 10oz rump steak (medium rare) with the brandy and peppercorn sauce, chips (gods, they were HUGE!), mixed salad and coleslaw. And then happily grazed on the cheeseboard for dessert - the brie was particularly nice and the Stilton was delicious :D

SOOO full but as usual, I regret nothing, dammit!

Oh! And Leeds were on TV at lunchtime and I was able to watch most of the game before having to scamper off to Stevenage. We won, 1-0! Hurrah!

Yesterday I toddled over to The Stanborough in WGC to use the £30 voucher they'd sent me in recompense of the complaint I made regarding a previous visit.

Operation "Spend Every Penny and be a Total Pig" was a complete success! (The T&C of the voucher meant it could only be used once and they didn't give change, so I wasn't going to let any of it go to waste :D)

Starters: Fried Whitebait with dip

Main: 10oz Rib Eye Steak, with House Special Butter, brandy and peppercorn sauce, done medium rare. With fries, onion rings and 3 king prawns. (Lovely option, to "surf" any steak for a small additional fee :D )

Dessert (after a 15 minute pause to let main sink): Profiteroles, with cream and chocolate sauce OMG SOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOD!!

In between there was a gallon of coffee and water.

Finished eating about 3.30pm, only ate again just now, when I had a bacon sarnie for breakfast. :P Gods, I was full. BUT IT WAS WORTH IT DAMMIT!!

And the service was excellent *grins*

Toddled over to the Cineworld in Stevenage this afternoon. Initially I was going to see "The Artist", to see what all the Oscar fuss was about, but when I got there, I decided I was more in the mood for "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel". This is a glorious gentle movie, starring the creme de la creme of British stage and screen (Seriously, just look at this cast list). It's moving, hilarious and sweet in about equal measure. Recommended!

Beaming gently, I left the cinema and wandered into "Frankie and Johnny's", a nearby chain restaurant, where I happily tucked into dough sticks with garlic butter dip (Ooog! Sooo bad but so good!!) followed by a dee-licious bacon cheeseburger with fries. Nyom!

I then drove to the football via the garage to get petrol. It says something about how little I'm using the car that a) I can't remember when I last had to fill it up and b) I hadn't even noticed the petrol was so low. *blush* Anyway, it didn't take long and by 7pm I was at the football, comfortably esconced in my seat reading the programme :)

Stevenage were playing Huddersfield, which amused me because Huddersfield are now managed by Simon Grayson, Leeds' ex-manager. I was kinda hoping we'd stuff 'em 4-0 or something but 'Boro went 0-2 in the second half to two very good goals. Dammit. But we fought back! Got back to 1-2, then we got a penalty! AHAHAH! we laughed at the Huddersfield fans.....and then the Huddersfield goalie pulls out one HELL of a save. The Huddersfield fans may have been impolite in our direction :P But we had the last laugh because with 2 minutes left, we got the equaliser! Woo hoo! 2-2 it finished. :)

And now I'm home, slurping tea and trying to convince the cat he isn't the Most Neglected Kitteh EVAH. :D

I went up to Hitchin tonight to see my old friend Karen. By "old friend", I mean we've known each other since we were 8 :) We are hopelessly bad at keeping in touch, for all that she lives 15 minutes away from me, but she's married with 2 kids and runs her own business so she's kinda occupied :D

Anyway, she sent me a birthday card with an added note saying "Text me! Let's meet up and go for pizza!" so I did and we arranged to meet tonight. We went to Strada's, an Italian restaurant train (our usual haunt is Pizza Express but they were all booked up). Very, very good food there, I shall frequent them again. I had a Speck pizza, thin crispy base, with Speck ham, rocket, mozzarella and gorgonzola cheese. I was worried about the gorgonzola, which I adore on pizza but is very easy to overdo. But this was spot on, complementing the other flavours without overpowering the whole thing. Dee-licious. And I had a pear sorbet to finish, which was sweet, light and refreshing. Karen had Rigatoni Sciiliana (roasted aubergines, courgettes and peppers in a garlic, basil & tomato sauce finished with ricotta). Her dessert was a chocolate dessert of great evil - a case of chocolate (shaped like a trough) filled with an insanely dense and rich mousse topped with strawberry slices. She finished it all but admitted she didn't want to see chocolate again for about a week :)
We finished off with coffee and tea before waddling back to her house.

Before, during and after the meal there was much happy yakking as we caught up on life, the universe and everything. I didn't leave until nearly midnight :) A very good evening indeed and I really must try and make sure it happens more often than every two years or so :P