We got to go to afternoon tea at the Ritz in London with Simon's grandparents, as part of his grandmother's 80th birthday gift.
There was a dress code: jacket and ties compulsory for gentlemen. Simon wore one too. (Ha!)
Look at all the teas! We had the traditional one, because you don't go to the Ritz to drink herbal tea.
They bring out the scones (on the middle level) just before you eat them, so they are at the perfect temperature when you are ready to eat them with clotted cream and jam. There were also sliced cakes from a trolley. Afternoon tea was actually quite a feast! They offered more of everything, too.
I also bought a new slow cooking cookbook in an attempt to do more interesting things with my slowcooker, and of course the first recipe I used was not a slowcooker recipe!
This is beef rendang, apparently a famous dish. You make a curry paste and simmer it with stewing beef and coconut milk so that it goes from this:
To this. With lots of time for evaporation, then more liquid and more time, and then toasted coconut, tamarind paste, and coriander. The whole process took about five hours.
We didn't have our dinner until 9 o'clock, but Simon was happy! I served it with basmati rice and steamed spinach. The next day I had tinned "Thai chicken soup" for lunch and it tasted like salty, slimy water. I think my palate is getting used to all this nice food!
Are we allowed to share recipes that come from books? I documented the process of making a gorgeous, flourless chocolate cake from the Ottolenghi cookbook, but I didn't know if publishing it here would be frowned upon.
And finally, we are obsessed with homemade pizza now! We keep the toppings constant (mozzarella, caramelised onion, mushrooms, feta, and olives) and I make the crust thinner and thinner every week! The same amount of dough that made a dinner plate-sized pizza in the beginning now makes a monster that barely fits on my baking sheet!
