Cooking with Bruce and other things

Bit of a rubbish day really, I was intending to wander into town and go through the second hand shops for some furniture to restore. But rain put a stop to that, so went around Shepshed instead, which took all of 10 minutes (1 minute furniture browsing, 9 mins LP flicking).

There is a more major blog coming this weekend btw. Once I've edited some pictures.

The week has been slow, but I think I've got a bit of focus for the projects I'm working on, so I've blocked out all of Monday to sit down and work on them.Will see how that goes. While writing that, it's just occurred to me that the cliche of guardian reader eating hummous described my afternoon. But I've put the paper aside to watch the 6 nations games. There's beer in the fridge too, if I go down that route.

So instead of wandering around town I finished off the beta for a website I got convinced to work on again. If anyone wants to check out the new location for the Society for Reptiles and Amphibian Research in New Zealand, go look here. Comments welcome, bear in mind the content is about a year old.
I fixed my computer as well, the 'n' key was working erratically, so I decided it was worth cleaning it. If only to avoid rather amusing spelling mistakes. Pulling the space bar and the 'n' key off suggested it definitely needed a clean, so vacuum cleaner was employed and now everything works nicely.

So it's been a pleasant and efficient morning/early afternoon to the sweet sounds of North Atlantic Oscillation, and their debut album - recommended for the usual naval gazing suspects. Then Bach's orchestra suites.

Today's recipe is a killer. Refreshing, tasty, and excellent for lunch the next day.

Chicken, Brie and Bacon Salad
Yeah obviously this is the original (plus my tweaks) version, I replaced the chicken with scallops and the bacon with dried fried shallots.

1. Salad greens, washed and dumped (dunno, 3 cups worth?) onto platter

2. Chicken chopped into bite sized chunks, coated with smoked paprika (smoked is important here) and fried, leave to cool.
1 small red onion sliced into rings
1 brie at room temperature and needs to be soft, cut into chunks
1 avocado, chopped
3 rashers bacon fried and chopped up

arrange in that order over the greens, drizzle a little olive oil over it.

3. Herb dressing: combine equal amounts of olive oil and white wine vinegar (I used about 50ml each); 1t salt; 2t honey; fresh ground black pepper; 1T wholegrain mustard; 3 finely chopped garlic cloves, finely chopped parsley, basil, chives, coriander - all into a jar with firm fitting lid. Mix vigorously and drizzle over the platter.

toast some pine nuts and flamboyantly fling over the dish, serve.

Back to 6 nations now.

Love, B