The Food Monologues

Last night I made a gumbo with my pressure cooker. It was an interesting mix of pork, chicken, salami and sausage with tomatoes and peppers. I bought some fresh okra, though I have never tried it before. It tastes similar to ridged cucumber (which I think it is related to) but its slightly goey and thickens up the sauce slightly. However, I still needed to make a brown roux to thicken it even more.

The problem with supermarket sales is that you always end up buying more than you actually need. Take for example just after Christmas, there was a serious over ordering of cream, so they were selling off pints of the stuff for 12p. Which is very cheap, if anyone was wondering (less than 1/10th of their normal selling price). I needed some cream for a some scone mix my sister bought me for christmas (a strange present - but it was American 'English' scone mix in pretty packaging which she thought I might like). The scone mix was strange to say the least. Instead of adding water or milk to the mix it asked for double cream and the package said it would make between 8-12 scones. I managed to get 36 reasonably large scones from the mixture. All I can think is that American portions must be very large indeed!

Since the cream was so cheap and was not even going off until today. I pondered over what else I could make with the other pint of cream that I bought. In the end, I made a huge Victoria sponge cake and 8 Black Forest cream muffins and still had some cream left over which I froze for use at a later time - perhaps by making some icecream. If I hadn't bought the cream, I might have had an easier afternoon. Now I have to wonder who will want to eat the cakes. I mean its now the new year and everyone is on diets. Maybe one last cream cake anyone?