Aaah. Smug mode.

[simont]

Prue just came round for dinner. Since she's been round here a fair number of times and I've already cooked her pretty much everything I know how to cook, I thought I'd stretch myself by making up something new to add to my repertoire.

This is a nervous business, as elise – my last guinea-pig – will probably remember. I get slightly edgy anyway when I'm cooking a dish for the first time; significantly more edgy when the first attempt is cooked for a guest; and quite a lot more edgy still when it's a recipe I only just assembled and I've no idea yet whether it'll work or not.

Fortunately, it did, and unlike my last new recipe I didn't even have to take notes on how to improve the next attempt. Lemon pepper chicken breast served with lemon, pepper and peppers risotto[1], and the whole thing Just Worked right down to the timing. A few more successes like that and I might even manage to stop being so nervous about the whole business :-)

[1] Arrgh. Putting peppers (as in the multicoloured crunchy vegetable) and pepper (as in the powdery hot stuff) in the same recipe tasted nice, but is a linguistic nightmare.

Comments

[deborah_c]

Yum! Sounds lovely!

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I keep trying to email you on a slightly related matter, but chiark doesn't seem to like me at the moment (I'm sort of between email addresses, so it may be getting confused.)

Anyway - the text of the mail was:

Subject: Yes Prime Minister?

Hello you,

We still have some more of this to watch, don't we? Plus, it's been ages and ages and ages since I've seen you properly, and I'm sure there's a heck of a lot of catching up to do. Shall we make a plan? I'm free Tuesday & Thursday
next week, although Lent starts on Wednesday, for which I'm going vegan, which could complicate things. The week after I've got Robert visiting, but he could probably find ways to entertain himself for an evening, in which case I'm free Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Any of these at all good for
you?

*hugs*

--
Elise

Also, yay for food working the first time :) I need to come up with a nice vegan recipe to cook for people next Friday, which should be particularly fun!

[simont]

(Are you sure you mean chiark? I don't use chiark for my email, precisely because of its tendency to take a dislike to random people. The chiark mail logs suggest that nobody at all has so much as tried to mail me there, pretty much as I expect, so do you mean something else?)

Argh! You keep giving up meat just when I have nice meat-based things to feed you :-) I'm afraid I'm not free between now and the start of Lent, so whatever happens it'll have to be vegan...

Out of the five dates you've mentioned, the only one I'm currently free for is Wednesday of the week after next (2005-02-12).

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

Ah. Am muppet. Really should try and actually use an address book instead of attempting to remember email addresses. But yes, it was the chiark address I was using.

Sorry about the timing. We could try for a weekend evening as the observences don't apply between vespers on Saturday and the end of Sunday, but I know your weekends tend to get filled with parties. Otherwise lets go for the 12th.

[simont]

Perhaps we should re-establish email contact and try to continue this discussion there? :-) You said you were "between email addresses": what address should I mail?

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

chocolate is still working for incoming mail, or elise at daigu dot org.

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

Hrm. Haven't heard anything - is that because you got an attack of busyness, or are things playing up again? My new address /should/ be working by now, which is elise at wildeabandon dot org, or if that doesn't work then you could try my work email, which is elisabethconolly at eeda dot org dot uk.

[simont]

Sorry! You were right the first time: I had an attack of needing to do some work. I'll now email all the addresses I can find and see which one you reply from. *hugs*

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Hmph! Don't credit the originator or the recipe and your culinary advisor, will you :)

[simont]

*smile*

Actually, the chicken was the easy part: I did it pretty much exactly as you suggested and it just worked. The interesting (in the Chinese sense) bit, and therefore the bit I'm smug about, was the risotto side, which I managed without help (unless you count Google).

But yeah, good point. Let anyone reading this take note that the chicken part of the recipe was due to lark_ascending, and that she is therefore a Good Thing.

[joshdavis]

Congrats on the cooking.
I experiment alot, but don't really cook for people other than the fam with any sort of regularity.

[thedancingfairy.livejournal.com]

Any tips. I'm the original microwave girl. I've promised eponymousarchon and kyte I will cook for them (eek soon). I think it'll be something exciting like pasta bolognese (ie spaghetti bolognese with pasta instead of spaghetti!). P.S can I friend you- you sound kinds cool.

[simont]

Thanks :-) You're entirely welcome to friend me if you like. (I think most people don't bother asking me, and I'd have been fine with that too.)

Currently all my best recipes seem to be on a basically risotto-ish theme. I probably ought to deliberately expand into something different at some point...