In The Same (Gravy) Boat...

As an update to last night's "cooking" post, and in reply to my latest Guestbook signing (thanks, Orkneyman) - er, no... Viki tells me she can't cook either!

Oh, well... at least the takeaways and ready meals companies will profit... and expect Rennies' market value to go through the roof...

P.S. I think the fudge has nearly worked this time... it was almost set when I sampled a bit out of the corner last night, and it was a bit "gritty" and crumbly, but maybe by tonight it will be set a bit harder... I'll eat it, but I don't think I'll be offering this batch around.

Poor Viki...

Now it's just about a week until she arrives, her flight is booked and paid for, she's given up her job, told her landlord she's leaving... basically, now it's too late for her to change her mind... I feel I can let her know some of what she's letting herself in for sharing a house with me for longer than a week when I'm not being on my best behaviour!

I'll reveal some over the next few days, starting with...

Er... I'm a not terribly good cook!

Tonight I've had another go making fudge (my third attempt... with a different recipe), and it was fraught with hassles...

I started off with it in too small a pot - and before I even got the condensed milk added, it had boiled over on to the cooker, so I had to transfer it into a bigger pot (transferring the tatties and cauliflower that was in it into a smaller pot - and, yes, I did wash the bigger pot before I put the fudge into it!)

Then there was Minnie the cat driving me crazy as I was trying to "stir continuously for 15 minutes", wanting food, and water, and god knows what else the little pain in the neck wanted!

Then - and this is a valuable lesson - after you've scraped the pot, and all the fudge is in the baking tray... DON'T LICK THE SPOON... not even with the very tip of your tongue - coz it's fucking hot!

And once I got it done (and I still don't know if it's worked or not), I made my dinner... the tatties & cauliflower I stuck in a dish, covered with cheese sauce (out of a packet, and that was almost a disaster too, because I didn't use enough milk to start with, and it went like cement, until I added a stack more milk and stirred like buggery), and then grated cheese, and then stuck it in the oven... but it wasn't the "potato and cauliflower cheese bake" that I had envisaged in my mind... and I fried a couple of pork supremes... except when I put one on my plate, and cut it in half, it was just short of being cooked right through - so I chopped them up, stuck them back in the pan, and gave them another blast until they were closer to burnt!

Plus the bloody things were sparking all over me, and the cat was going demented because she wanted one... and I was hot, stressed, and getting burnt by pinpricks of hot oil... and expecting the smoke detector to go off at any moment!

So, first bit of advice for Viki... bring plenty of indigestion tablets! Or, become chief cook, and I'll be bottle washer!

Aw, Fudge!

Did you know that evaporated milk and condensed milk aren't the same thing?

I didn't!

Why is this startling fact important? Well, if you try to make fudge with evaporated milk, it doesn't work! As I discovered tonight after purchasing the following in an attempt to make fudge:

A pot (a nice shiny, new pot)
A little baking tray thing for the fudge to cool in
A set of 2 spatulas - 1 wooden, 1 wooden with a rubber spatula bit
Butter (unsalted)
Sugar (soft brown)
EVAPORATED milk (big tin)

Listed my ingredients on a forum I was on, and someone replied saying "Evaporated milk? I thought it had to be condensed?"

Checked up... and discovered that evaporated and condensed milks were NOT just the same thing with a slightly different name. So my batch of what was basically fudge sauce, because it wouldn't set, was poured down the loo.

My brother was heading out to Tesco tonight, so I got a run there with him, and returned with:

CONDENSED milk (big tin)
and Sugar (soft brown Fair Trade)

ready for Fudge MkII (I still had some butter left).

Not checked it in a while, but I fear that this time we might have gone past Fudge, and veered into Toffee territory...

The really annoying thing is when I think how many bars of Orkney Fudge I could have bought for the money it's cost me to try to make a few bits!

Maybe from now on I'll leave the culinary things to the Delia Smiths of this world? I just wanted to do something fun and a bit different to take my mind off today!