I conquered my fear of the devil's hemorrhoids!

As part of my new year's resolutions I set myself the task of trying 12 new experiences that challenged me and made me move outside my comfort zone. It's not even the end of January and I've completed one of these challenges! *sniff* very proud of myself!

Anyone who knows me, or has eaten with/cooked for me will know that I have a massive aversion to devil's hemorrhoids. You may know them better by their layman's term; mushrooms. They are evil, nasty, foul little tumours of grey fugliness and, I will never understand why they're called 'funghi' because I can assure you there is nothing 'fun' in them at all.

I first discovered my loathing at middle school. I opted for the cold/salad option one lunchtime, and it came with a cup of soup. I use the term 'soup' lightly because it was actually more like a cup of thick, grey sludge. I took one smell and knew I couldn't stomach it. I offered it up to the other girl's on the table, but all declined (having all smartly opted for the hot course none felt any obligation to relieve me of my sludge). The teacher on duty in the dinner hall that day was one of the strictest teacher's at the school, Mrs Tuvey. I tried to sneak past her with a napkin over my sludge cup, but she caught me, made me sit back down, and refused to let me move until I'd digested the lot. Some amount of time later, with tears rolling down my cheeks, I held my nose, threw back my head and swallowed the now cold, even-thicker sludge.
'There. Wasn't so bad, was it?' asked Mrs Tuvey smugly
'No' said I, weakly. I rose to my feet and promptly projectile vomited all down the front of her. That'll teach you to make me do something I don't want to do!

From that point onwards my mushroom allergy/aversion was born. Over the years I have gone to great lengths to avoid ingesting one of those pallid polyps. But, there has been the inevitable occasion where a slimy slug has gotten through, and on each occasion it was like gastronomical Armageddon. The stomach cramps that made me think I'd been impregnated by an alien and it was trying to claw its way out of my body. The bloating that turned me into an oompa lumpa, and then the most horrific noises emanating from my gut, like trumpets summoning the demons from Hell. When it did finally find an exit it would usually be in some kind of projectile format - like funnelling a waterfall through a straw. And the stench would be like a thousand rotting corpses had vomited, ate the vomit, then vomited again. Napalm has nothing on this stuff. When it's all over and done I'm exhausted and feel truly violated.

The worst occasion was at a dinner party in 2010 where the hostess, completely unknowing of my allergy, made a Wensleydale and mushroom tart for starter, and venison and mushroom stew for main. I circumnavigated the starter, but got caught out by the main, and totally ruined her fantastic dinner party (which are legendary, by the way) by incarcerating her porcelain God. The whole toilet area had to be a contamination zone for some time afterwards.

In all my years I've only come across one other person that had this same allergy. My friend, Tennille. Last year Tennille said that as she'd gotten older her allergy had eased up and she could actually eat food that had been cooked with mushrooms. This made me start to wonder if perhaps my allergy had gotten better? I'd obviously never noticed because I always had stringent methods in place to ensure a clammy clump never passed my lips.

So, I started to test the water. I tried a few bites of TH's food if he ordered something with mushrooms (just the sauce, not a mushroom). Hmmm...no reaction. This was new, and exciting! I continued to try sauces and dishes (just little bites) that had been cooked with mushrooms, and still no reaction. Then one day, the inevitable happened. Completely unintentionally, one of those sickly sacks made it past my palate and down into my stomach. I waited the obligatory 20 mins for the gastro-exorcism to start. But, it didn't come. About an hour after later, I experienced some intestinal cramping that was a walk in the park to the normal spleen-ripping cramps I normally get. And that was it! Voila!

This might not sound like much to you, but to me it was immense! It was the first time since I was 8 years old that I hadn't gastronomically exhumed the dead after eating a mushroom. And as for mild intestinal cramps, well, I can live with that! It's a small price to pay in comparison.

This is when I decided it was time to take the next step and actually bring a mushroom into the house and cook it. And, as if reading my mind, TH asked me to make Beef Bourguignon for his birthday, and *gulp* the recipe called for mushrooms! So, I bought a pack of lacklustre lumps and commenced the dinner. TH caught me about to throw them into the pot without washing them...well, how would you know what to do them if you've never used them!? The dinner itself was lovely, and I even put a mushroom on my plate. I didn't eat it mind, but it sat on my plate for the whole duration of the dinner and I resisted all urges to flick it across the table. And, what's even better is that I only had mild cramping and bloating later on, and no signs of a gastronomical exodus as usual.

I don't think I'm going to try actually eat a mushroom for fear of a gastro-apocalypse revival, but the fact that I can tolerate them being in the house and on my plate, and in food that's touched my food...well, that's ma-hoo-sive! I'm proud of myself for conquering this challenge, but I think it's a bit too early to suggest inviting the mushroom to my plate more often. He'd have to be a bit more of a fun-guy for that to happen!

Christmas fuddle food

Every Christmas TH and I have a fuddle at Chez Shelbrooke. It has become as much a hardy feature of Christmas as Disney re-runs. Each year I try to get a little more adventurous with the fodder because the lowly mince pie, fruit cake, pork pie and Branston can only go so far to tantalise the taste buds. In 2012 I pushed the boat out and offered just about every Christmas hors d'oeuvres available from M&S. It became known as my 'food porn Christmas'. However, post fuddle I was left with a load of bite sized food to consume in a mad rush before the onslaught of turkey week.

So, this year I went for the option of 'less is more'. I stuck to the traditional food, didn't go down the bite-sized route, but instead I gave some of the food a bit of Christmas bling. What I ended up with is an über pretty table, that was not only aesthetically pleasing, but cost a damn site cheaper than the year before.

First up for a make over was the cheese board. TH and I lurrrve cheese. I mean we worship it. And the stinkier and runnier it is the more we bow to its malodorous epicarp. But, Christmas is very much about your bog standard cheeses, your Wensleydale, Cheshires, Red Leicesters, and Cheddars. Quite frankly these bore the pants off me. So, I opted for one cheese board of opulent ambrosial delicacies and one of workhorse stalwarts. The odoriferous board needed no titivation; it's aromatic blends, and rotund semblance sang for itself. The peon board, however, looked as tempting as a a plate of tripe; pallid and lackluster in comparison. A little Christmas magic was needed!

So I cut up all the plebeian cheeses into small chunks. I then took one colour and arranged it in two lines on the bottom of the cheese board. I lay two sprigs of rosemary above it. Above that I lay a two-deep line of plum tomatoes. Next, I used a lighter shade of cheese and arranged it in two lines above the tomatoes, but this time coming in on each side by one chunk so that a tiered effect was created. I followed this with more rosemary and plum tomatoes, and alternating colours of cheeses, always remembering to come in a little at the sides to keep the tier. When I got to the top of the board I simply cut a star shape using a knife out of a lump of cheese and placed it at the top of the tier. The result is a cheese board that looks like a Christmas tree! Everyone thought it was brilliant, and it certainly brightened up an otherwise boring food addition to the table.

Patting myself on the back for being so inventive with the cheese, I decided to give some fruit a makeover. Next up for the refashioning were the strawberries. I decided that, given their shape, they were begging to be made into little Santas! I'd looked up a couple of recipes and they all called for either whipped cream from a can, or whipping cream. Lovely, yes, but if you have to sit on a table for several hours in a room full of hot, mulled-
wine fueled people, then I'm quite sure they'd melt and congeal into a hot, pink blancmange all over the table. So, instead I opted for a cream cheese frosting. And, I cheated! I used store bought! Christmas is busy enough without whipping up a frosting from scratch.

To make the Santas I de-leafed the strawberry, inverted it (so it sat on the counter fattest part down), and sliced off it's 'bum' (the pointy end) and put the 'bum' to one side. I then put some cream cheese frosting into a piping bag and piped a good daub (if you don't daub enough your 'hats' won't stay and there won't be enough room for the face) onto the sliced off fat end of the strawberry. Once all strawberries were 'daubed' I replaced the 'bums', which have clearly now become the 'hats'. I then daubed a little frosting on the front of the strawberry to make a 'button' and on top of the hat to make a 'bauble'. Lastly, using tiny chocolate balls meant for cake decoration, and a pair of tweezers, I inserted chocolate 'eyes' into each Santa. Make sure you chill them before serving to ensure they set and don't melt. And voila! Everyone absolutely loved these and they were gone within minutes of me putting them out!

Here is what my table looked like in the full (minus the strawberries, which were still in the fridge chilling), oh, and Merry Christmas from the Mooblings!

Cookies

Crab apple jelly recipe

Crab apple Jelly - Worship the Wobble!

If you're lucky enough to have a crab apple tree near to you, don't waste the opportunity to make this amazingly sweet jelly. I have a lovely big tree in my front yard, and each harvest I look forward to this little beauty!

The crab apple is inedible in it's natural state; far too bitter for our palates and no real flesh on the apples. However, add a little heat, water, sugar, and time, and these little apples turn into the sweetest jelly you've ever tasted. The beauty of this recipe is that you don't have to add a gazillion pounds of sugar like other jellies/jams. The crab apple, despite it's tartness in it's natural form, is actually the pectin equivalent of the Duracell bunny in the fruit world. Their skins and flesh contain an exceedingly high amount of pectin, a natural gelling agent.

I'd looked at several recipes, which all required an actual weight of crab apples. When you've got an entire tree at your disposal, you kind of want a 'one-size-fits-all-apples' approach so you don't have to keep weighing out the apples, and making batch after batch. Eventually, I combined a few recipes and came up with the following, which I actually think works easier than the weighed recipes, and the taste was just as scrumdidly sweet.

What you'll need
As many crab apples as you can get (this is not a weight-specific recipe)
2 bags of granulated sugar
2 big pans
6 jars (at least) with lids
Cheese cloth, or tea towels
Wax seals
A bit of time

Method (to my madness!)

1) Take as many crab apples as you want to use. Stick them in the sink and give them all a good rinse through (because little 'sects and spiders like to hibernate on the fruit, and trust me you don't want to see one of those floating about in your jelly!) Ideally, you should de-stalk them, but trust me when I say that this is an arduous and futile task. 20 mins, and two blisters into de-stalking I gave up and it made no impact on the jelly.

2) When washed pile them into a very, very large pan. I actually have a jam pan, but you can use any pan that is ever-so-large. Add enough water to just cover them in the pan.

3) Now turn the heat on medium high and cook those little apples for all their worth! You want to get them down to a mushy consistency, almost like apple sauce. You'll probably need to cook them for a good hour, but this is up to your discretion. If they look mushy after 30 mins then they're done.



4) Whilst your apples are happily turning into mush you need to cover a bowl (or bowls depending on how much you have - I usually need to cover two bowls) with cheese cloth. Now, you can buy cheesecloth at any cook store, or Hobbycraft, but it's not cheap. So, I have been known to use a tea towel. Yes, this does work, but you need to use a tea towel that is not tightly woven, so one of the thicker, more absorbent ones are better than the thinner ones. Oh, and the tea towel needs to be clean! Cover the bowl (s) with your cheese cloth/tea towel and use string to secure the material is in place. Make sure the cloth is taught. Any slackage and the crap apples will pull the material down.

5) Once the apples are super mushy you need to transfer them to the cloths. Some people pour them onto the cloths, but I find it's too much weight hitting the cloth at once and it drags the cloths down. Instead, I spoon the mush onto the cloths. The cloths will sag down, just make sure they're not too heavy and pull the cloth out of the string. Fill as much to the top as possible, and make sure the  top of the apples is flat and not mounded.

6) Now, sit back, relax, make a cuppa, go to the movies because you need to give the apples at least 8 hours to seep through the cloth. You can always let them rest overnight. You'll wake up the next morning to an near-solid, sunken, moist mass on top of your cheese cloth.

7) Remove the cloth and apples from the bowls (making sure not to drop it into the fluid below. Throw the apples away (I wish I knew of a further use for this pulp because it does seem like such a shame to throw it away, but I've not been able to find any recipes. If you know of any I'm all ears!) You will be left with a pallid, wee-coloured liquid in the bowls. This needs to be measured out at 450g of granulated sugar for every 600ml of strained juice. So, I pour the liquid from the bowls into a measuring jug. When I reach 600ml I pour it into a large pan (the jam pan) and add 450g of sugar. Continue doing this until you've used up all the juice. If you end up with an odd number of juice left over i.e. say 200ml, then fraction the sugar out at .75g per ml, so 200 ml = 150g of sugar.

8) Turn the heat up high and cook the juice until the sugar has melted. Once it reaches boiling point, turn the heat down. You'll start to notice a 'scum' appear on the surface. Skim this off and throw it away. Keep on doing this, and repeatedly stir the liquid. Oooh, look there I am doing just this!

9) Whilst you're stirring and skimming put another big pan of hot water onto the stove and set the heat going. Literally, bring a pan of water to the boil, and place the jars and lids into the boiling water. Let it sit there for a good ten minutes then remove your jars and allow them to cool. There, you've just sterilised your jars!

10) Now, there's no timings involved in cooking your apple-sugar liquid. It's done when it's done, and you'll know when it's done. The liquid goes from wee coloured to a glorious translucent mackintosh red. You'll also find that instead of boiling bubbles, you'll get a 'rolling boil' as though the liquid is literally rolling to the top. It will look like picture below. If you want to make 100% sure that it's done place a spoon in the freezer for about 10 mins so it's really cold. Dip it into the red liquid and remove. Let it cool for a minute, or two. Then rub your finger over the liquid on the back of the spoon. If it is set and wrinkles against your touch, it is done.

11) Turn the heat off and place a funnel into a jar (you don't have to use a funnel, it just makes for less mess). Using a ladle, spoon the liquid to a quarter of an inch below the top of the jar.

12) Remove the funnel, and insert a wax disc into the top of the jar. You can buy these at Hobbycraft, or any cooking store. They're not expensive and they're worth their weight in gold. They 'seal' the top of the jars to prevent any bacteria, or air getting to the jelly. The first year I made the jelly I didn't use the wax seals, and when I opened the jellies a month, or so later they had mould on the surface. The following year I used the seals, and many months later the jellies were still fresh. Now, the seals may not always fit, and may curl up at the edges. This is ok, just make sure that the surface of the jelly is covered.

 13) Seal the jars as soon as the wax seal has been inserted, and then leave them (preferably) overnight to cool completely.



14) Once they've completely cooled decorate them to your heart's content!



So, now that you're intrigued to make these little gems you're probably wondering what you eat the jelly with. Well, you can use it in place of applesauce when you have pork. But, to be honest with you, it goes with any meat. I particularly like it in place of cranberry sauce when eating turkey. It also makes a great accompaniment to a cheese board instead of a compote.