NOMNOMNOMMMM

Food. We bladdy love food, us two. We also love boys. WHAT IF WE COMBINED THESE TWO LOVES IN TO SOME SORT OF COMEDY BLOG POST? Also featuring RECIPES for your eyes and kitchens and bellies. Enjoy. And if you DO attempt to make any of this then send us photos/comments/reviews/leftovers. X

CRUMPET

My name is Crumpet and I have a problem with food. And boys. I can NOT eat in front of boys. Not ones I like or don’t know that well anyway. I LOVE food. I love cooking, I love cooking for people, I love feeding people… but if we are on anything that closely resembles a date I will do EVERYTHING I CAN to avoid having to eat. Usually this results in me getting FAR too drunk if it’s a pub-based drinky datey type situation… I mean it’s easy enough to forget to even worry about food during this type of situation but the fact is I just can’t stand eating in front of someone I fancy. I freeze up at the very thought.

I’m not that much of a messy eater. I’m polite. I know what cutlery to use when and can dab the corners of my mouth with a fine linen napkin like an extra from something with Dame Mags or whatever. But if there’s a boy there I WILL spill my drink. I’ll spill it on to my plate. Which will make my food fall on to my lap. Which will send my fork flying off in to my hair where it will become tangled up in pieces of brocoli that have been sprayed in to my barnet. And then I’ll probably burp, hiccup, sneeze ketchup out of my mouth and drop whatever’s left on to the feet of the person at the next table.

I was having lunch with Panda a while ago. It was a big messy burger and a plate full of a mountain of thousands of chips. I was doing OK. It was a BIG plate of food but I’d hardly made ANY mess. Then along came Some Boys and 2 seconds later I had ketchup round my mouth, thrown all me chips on the floor and got a bit of lettuce in my hair whilst also completely losing my appetite. Wish I was joking. I don’t know HOW it happens but it bloody does.

Crumpet's foody freakout

I’m clumsy and easily flustered but something just goes VERY VERY wrong when me + food are in front of A Boy I Like. I recently even had to text Panda in a panic when eating was essential and I was freaking out. (She was helpful and calming of course, but I still didn’t manage to eat *that* much). Mind you that time I actually managed alright. I ate a fair bit. Maybe it depends on how comfortable you are around the person… or it might have been because I played it SAFE because I know What I’m Like and I ate about 9 chips.

This wasn’t how this post was meant to pan out. I was going to talk about the kind of food I like to cook for a boy. I got sidetracked. But I thought I might try A New Thing for our little blog and share a recipe. My favourite thing to cook FOR and WITH a boy ever ever is…. Mushroom Risotto.

Not a traditionally sexy dinner. It can look a bit like babysick and lots of people are funny about mushrooms. But if you cook this slowly, properly and carefully it can be as delicious and sexy to make as it is to eat. It’s PERFECT for winter and because there is so much to do it’s really fun to make with someone who you’re comfortable messing around in the kitchen with. I’m not amazingly sure on measurements and amounts but I’ll let ya have the basics:

3 cloves of garlic
1 large onion, 1 stick of celery
Aborio rice (like… half a packet? Sorry…)
A few different types of mushrooms (I like to mix chestnut, oyster, field + shiitake MMMMmmm!)
Fresh flat leaf parsley
Thyme (fresh or dry)
Lemon
Chilli powder
About a litre of vegetable stock
White wine or martini (I’ve used GIN once and it was OK!!)
BUTTER AND PARMASAAAAAN

Job 1:
Chop half the mixed mushrooms, fry with 1 clove of garlic and a little salt.
Just before they’re done, add about a teaspoon of chilli powder, some thyme and a squeeze of garlic
Put this stuff to one side.

Heat your stock so it’s hot but not boiling – kept constant

Job 2:
In a sauce pan or a big thick fryingy type pan (you know. The deepish ones) add chopped onion + celery.
Add the garlic once the onions are soft and clear
NOW pour in the rice, dry (it will sizzle and crackle and stick a bit but stir it to soak up the onion juices)
Before it burns (CAREFUL!) add about a shot of martini/wine/gin

ADD THE REST OF THE MUSHROOMS (not the cooked ones from before – the UNCOOKED ones)

Before it burns (EVEN MORE CAREFUL NOW) pour in a LADLE full of stock until the rice soaks up ALL the liquid

Each time it dries up, add another ladle of stock

KEEP STIRRING KEEP STIRRING

Repeat this adding more stock by 1 ladle at a time until the rice gets soft, fat, fluffy but NOT GLUEY.

Eventually it will stop absorbing any more stock. THEN you can add some fresh parsley, LOADSABUTTER, and stir in the mushrooms from before. Sprinklin of cheese on the top. DONE.

COOK THIS WITH SOMEONE YOU FANCY. It’s kinda stressy but can be SO SO fun. Because it’s kinda challenging and all in the timing. Share it. Enjoy it. Clean each other up when you realise you’ve spilt it all over your clothes/face/couch/hair. And if you DO make it I’d love to know how you get on.

PANDA

I had to think whether or not I was ok eating in front of Boys………Then I remembered having a waggamammas (Thatch can you sort that spelling out for me please its WELL wrong) with one in the summer. I had a curry and used chop sticks. Although I think I put my hand over my mouth trying to be all dainty and that when I was chewing (Probably cos i’d smashed so much in)

I really like baking for boys (Think I’m gonna open up a whorehouse/quaint tea shop and call it that) anyway I do. I’ll make you your favourite cake cos I’m well nice like that. I don’t really worry that it’ll turn out wrong, even the ones that look like they were made by a stoned monkey still taste brilliant. Its different with cooking a dinner though innit. There’s more pressure, a hungry boy who’s waiting to be fed a delicious meal. What if it goes wrong, what if I accidentally make them throw up, which I might have possibly done before. OMG TOO MUCH PRESSURE!!!! Also there’s the fact that I’m really lazy, if I ever make you a roast dinner (Which I do really well) it probably means I want to marry you. So factor in all these things then and what I would make a boy I was into, would be…

Confuse your steak...

Steak and Chips (and some other stuff on the side) Ingredients

Steak (2 hunks of): I always go Sainsbos……You can go to any other supermarket, maybe Waitrose if you’re feeling all posh. Or Asdas WHATEVER. For the sake of this recipe we’re off to Sainsurys. Go to the meat counter, I asked Nigel for a nice bit of steak and he gave me Aberdeen Angus rump I think.

Chips: I hate oven chips HATE THEM. Me and Panda were out the other day Lunching, and we had a burger and Chips (EVERY time we’ve had lunch Crumpet in three different places, we’ve had THE SAME THING maybe we should jazz it up next time) Anyway yeah they were oven, all soggy and powdery with cold lumps in the middle. Oven chips SUCK!! But, But there is an exception Aunt bloody Bessy, marvellous.
(For best results make proper chips with a deep fat fryer. I would but I’m not allowed to use one unsupervised.)

Onion Rings: I’d go for breaded not battered. Sainsbos own are great. I’m sure you could make em yourself from scratch but whats the point.

Some sort of salad (To make you think it’s a bit healthy): If I’m feeling all proper. I’ll have goats cheese and big massive tomatos….You can have whatever you ruddy bloody please.

Method of Making

Put Chips on baking tray, bung on a bit of olive oil. Put in oven at gas mark blah blah blah read the packet. Repeat for onion rings minus the oil. (Note allow an extra ten minutes than what the packet says on chips cos they always need it.

Sort ya steak out. Keep all fat on, don’t put Salt on just Pepper. Then literally bash the fuck out of it. Well actually i like to confuse the steak. I like to really bash it up, then give it a little nice massage. Continue confusing the steak for about five minutes. Get a frying pan. Put oil in it. Heat it up full whack till its proper smoking and sizzling. Put steak in (be careful will spit like a nutta) I like my steak medium rare, i leave it for two – three minutes then turn it over. When its done leave it to sit for a bit, somewhere, a plate?

Prepare a salad, whatever you fancy. Get one of them ready-made ones if you really can’t be arsed.

Get stuff out the oven, then put the whole lot on a plate. Serve with sauce. I like to have BBQ, Mayo and Tomato sometimes Mustard.

Eat it like hungry Wolf Cubs. Get meat drunk and Greeeeezy. Put on a film. Have a little nap.