Tag: Pineapple

Admiral Highball – Appointment with Death

Hello food lovers and crime readers!   Today we have not only an Appointment with Death but also a meeting with an Admiral!  An Admiral Highball that is! As mentioned in my previous post on Manakish, there is no food mentioned in Agatha’s Appointment with Death.  There is however a mention of the cocktail called a Highball. I searched through my cocktail recipes and decided that an Admiral Highball would be my drink of choice for this book.

Why you ask?  Well…Admiral Highball sounds like he might be a character in a Golden Age murder mystery.  Or one of the potential murderers in a game of Cluedo.  “It was Admiral Highball in the boatshed with a fishing rod” sounds almost too good to be made up!  More importantly, though, the Admiral Highball contains bourbon and I thought that was a nice nod to the American Boynton family who feature in this story!

Admiral Highball 1

Also, welcome to the RFFMT family, the gorgeous Carmen Vaseranda!  She’ll be popping in now and again to give her verdict on fruity concoctions. She is an absolute beauty isn’t she?

Appointment with Death – The Plot

You know how sometimes you may feel your mother is a little overbearing and/or demanding?  I hear you.  But believe me.  None of our collective issues prepares us for Mrs. Boynton. She’s Flowers in the Attic level mad in her control over her family! Formerly a prison warden, Mrs. B treats her adult children like her former prisoners!  Their touring party consists of her adopted adult children Raymond, Carol, Lennox, her own daughter Ginevra, and Raymond’s wife Nadine.

They are all somewhat psychologically scarred by their years under their mother’s control – some more than others.  Then Mrs Boyton is found dead.  She was taking medication for a heart condition so was her passing from natural causes?  Or something more sinister?  Admiral Highball 2

We have

  • Poirot overhearing the following words through an open window on his first night in Jerusalem.  “You do see, don’t you, that’s she’s got to be killed?”
  • Raymond Boynton catching feelings for Dr. Sarah King, a member of their travelling party.
  • Nadine on the verge of leaving Lennox due to his mother’s control over them
  • Ginevra Boyton increasingly losing hold of reality
  • A number of missing hypodermic needles
  • Some missing digitoxin
  • A tiny mark on Mrs Boynton’s wrist.  Could it be from the prick of a needle?
  • Pretty much everyone lying because they think someone they love did the evil deed

It’s a tangled tale.  Good thing we have Poirot on hand to bring the wrongdoer to justice!

Appointment With Death – The Covers

This, even if I do say so my self is an amazing collection!  Three Italian and one Vietnamese for a start!  I know I always gush over the colours but each and every one of these is amazing!

Appointment with Death Collage

Just as quck aside, you may be wondering why both my photo above and one of these pics has a Buddha when the story is set entirely in the Middle East?  Well it’s because at least once Mrs B is described as a Buddha:

“here, like an arch priestess of some forgotten cult, like a monstrous swollen female Buddha, sat Mrs Bonyton”

But none of above covers  prepares us for the mec plus ultra of covers for Appointment for Death which is, of course, the Tom Adams cover.  Just imagine you have heard the above plot points and seen the covers that came before you.  And instead of using motifs like an older, fat woman, scenes of Jordan, or a  threatening Arab (not even remotely featured in the story but back in the day apparently no one cared about casual racism) you come up with this!

Bravo and a standing ovation for Tom Adams.  I have no idea what your cover means, it bears no relevance to the script.

But I love you for creating it!!!

And hate you for giving me nightmares because of it!  I mean what the hell is that  coming out of that woman’s head?

The Recipe – Admiral Highball

Admiral Highball 3My recipe for the Admiral Highball came from The Mammoth Book of Cocktails by Paul Martin

Admiral Highball Recipe

Mr Jefferson Cope took another sip of highball and went on:

“I’d like to tell you, Dr Gerard, just a little of the Boynton family history”

Appointment with Death – Agatha Christie

Links to The Christieverse

I was able to find three references to other books in Appointment with Death:

  • Colonel Race and the Shaitana murder are mentioned by Colonel Carbury (Cards on The Table)
  • Nadine speaks of Poirot’s accepting the official version of the truth in the case of the Orient Express
  • Miss Pierce says she read all about the ABC CaseAdmiral Highball 4

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Appointment with Death

  • Coffee (twice)
  • Whisky Soda (twice)
  • Tea (Twice)
  • Soda Water

As I said at the top – not a huge amount to choose from!

Last time I posted I was heading to Darwin, later this week I am doing a two-day work trip to Adelaide.  My reading material on the flights will be next month’s selection, Murder is Easy. Adelaide is considered the weird murder capital of Australia so goodness only knows what I’ll find there!  Actually, maybe I won’t take Murder is Easy – I don’t want to give some nutter any ideas!

Have a great week!

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Simply The Best Carrot Cake

I don’t think I have mentioned this before but I absolutely hate cooked carrots.  I don’t mind them chopped up really small in a Bolognese or Shepherd’s Pie but to this day, if I go to my mum’s for a family dinner I get raw carrots on my plate instead of cooked.  This hatred of cooked carrots meant that I did not eat carrot cake until well into my thirties and even then, my first taste was by stealth!

Carrot Cake1

I clearly remember my first taste of carrot cake.  It was someone’s birthday at work and I was too busy to attend the celebration but one of my friends brought me back a piece of cake.  Still concentrating on what I was doing, I took a bite.

“OMG…this is delicious!!!!  What on earth is this?”

My friend looked rather non-plussed.  “It’s carrot cake…”

“This is carrot cake?”

“Yes”

“Is there any more?”

 

Carrot Cake2

Since then I have been making carrot cake on the reg so I was a little surprised  when I mentioned that I was going to blog my “Classic” carrot cake recipe  and the fussiest eat in the world said

“I don’t think you can call it classic”.

“Why not?”

“Well….it has pineapple in it…It’s delicious.  But it’s not classic carrot cake”

“Carrot cake has pineapple in it”.

“No other carrot cake I ever ate had pineapple in it”

“It’s based on a recipe by Tina Turner”

“That doesn’t make it a classic”

Well, I beg to differ.  I think that absolutely makes it a classic.  And you can argue with me all you want.  Try arguing with her!

She will kick your ass all the way to Nutbush City Limits!  Anyway, I changed the name so it homaged Tina a bit more!

Carrot Cake4

The Recipes

As mentioned my recipe for carrot cake is based on a recipe by Tina Turner from the book “Cool Cooking” by Roberta Ashley.  I have adapted it in minor ways:

  • My version uses butter not margarine
  • I leave out the currants
  • I add some rum.  Pineapple and rum is a great flavour combination and the rum works really nicely with the brown sugar and cinnamon too!  Plus, now more than ever, what isn’t better with a little bit of booze!
  • I prefer cream cheese icing rather than the cream suggested by Tina

The OG Tina Version

Here are the original recipe and the front and back covers of the book it comes from.

Carrot Cake Collage

 

My Tweaked Version

Print

Simply The Best Carrot Cake

A delicious cake, based on a recipe by Tina Turner.  This cake is easy to make and keeps beautifully!  This will last for a week if kept in the fridge – if you don’t eat it all first!  

Ingredients

Scale

For The Cake

  • 120g butter
  • 1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
  • 3 eggs, well beaten
  • 2 1/2 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts
  • 1 400g can crushed pineapple (drained)
  • 2 cups grated raw carrots
  • 3 tbsp dark rum
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1 tsp cinnamon

For The Icing

  • 80g icing sugar
  • 250 grams cream cheese
  • Zest of a lemon
  • Juice of 1/2 a lemon
  • Additional walnuts, toasted and chopped to decorate

Instructions

For the cake – Preheat your oven to 170C (150 Fan forced).

Lightly grease a 20cm (base) round cake pan and line with non-stick baking paper.

Cream the butter with the sugar until pale.  Add the eggs one by one, mixing thoroughly between each addition.

Add the flour, baking powder, bicarb and cinnamon.

Mix again until all the ingredients are well combined.

Add the carrots, pineapple, walnuts, rum and vanilla. 

Stir through so that all the ingredients are well combined.  

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for around 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. 

Set aside for 5 minutes, before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely

For the icing – place the cream cheese, icing sugar and lemon juice in a bowl. Beat together unitl well combined.  

  • Spread over the cooled cake.
  • Top with addtional chopped walnuts and lemon zest.

Carrot Cake 7

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Stay safe!

REPOST from 2016 – The Black-Eyed Susan

“I am the star of screaming headlines and campfire ghost stories. 

I am one of the four Black-Eyed Susans. 

The lucky one”

Black Eyed Susan 1

Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin is the story of Tessa Cartwright.  As a teenager, she was abducted and left for dead in a field of Black-Eyed Susan flowers along with other dead and dying girls. They become collectively known as the Black-Eyed Susans.  Tessa is the only survivor.

Now, in her thirties, the man accused of the crime, the man whom Tessa’s testimony helped put away is facing death row.  And Tessa is having doubts about his guilt.  And if he’s innocent, then the real killer is still out there….

Black Eyed Susan 2
I came to this book in two ways.

It was one of the selections we had for our Crime /Thriller month in bookclub along with Maestra (the one we chose), The Method (which I am currently reading) and The Ex (which I just bought as I noticed it was super cheap as I was getting the link).

Then, the  very next day after we had made our choice,  Heather who writes the blog Meta’s Meals wrote a very positive review of Black-Eyed Susans on Goodreads and I promptly decided that it was going to the top of my reading list!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Black Eyed Susan’s. It was very suspenseful and the plot was original which is a really hard thing to do in crime fiction. I only hope Maestra which is our book club choice is half as good.  Mind you, last year we chose Girl on The Train which…urrggghhhh…I cannot even tell you how much I hated that book.

But this one’s good.  And it has a gorgeous cover!

Black -Eyed Susans

Whilst reading The Black-Eyed Susans, I discovered that there is a cocktail called the Black-Eyed Susan.  It is the official drink of the Preakness Stakes Horse race which is run in Baltimore each year as the winning horse is draped in a blanket made of these flowers.

This was delicious.  I love pineapple juice and St Germain in cocktails so there was no way I wasn’t going to like this.  The lime juice gave it a nice little kick of tanginess too!

The Black-Eyed Susan also got the thumbs up from resident bon vivant F Scott.

Black Eyed Susan 3Oh, and before anyone complains, I know the flowers I have used in my photos are not Black-Eyed Susans.  I am not even sure if they grow here, or, if they did when they would flower.  Anyhoo, the gerberas were the closest (only) thing my local florist had that came close!

Here’s the recipe.  Why not make one and have a sip whilst reading the book!

Print

Black Eyed Susan

A delicious refreshing pineapple and citrus cocktail with a hint of Elderflower.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 45ml Vodka (The Preakness recommend Finlandia)
  • 15ml St Germain
  • 60ml pineapple juice
  • 7.5 ml lime juice
  • 22.5ml orange juice

To Garnish

  • Orange Slice
  • Amarena cherry

Instructions

  1. Combine all the drink ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker.
  2. Shake, baby, shake.
  3. Pour over ice into a Collins glass
  4. Garnish with an orange slice and an Amarena cherry

Notes

  • I used Amarena cherries for this because their darker colour looked more like a black eye than a Maraschino.

Thank you Heather for the recommendation.  If anyone else would  like super book recommendations from Heather, why not follow her, or me on Goodreads!

Have a wonderful Easter!

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Giddy-Up, It’s a Melbourne Cup Pineapple Double

Those of you who don’t live in Australia may be unaware that the Melbourne Cup is run on the first Tuesday in November.  The Melbourne Cup is our version of the Kentucky Derby  or Ascot or  the <<insert the biggest horse race from your country here>>.

Melbourne Cup Crab and Pineapple Appetizer
Melbourne Cup Crab and Pineapple Appetizer

They call it the race that stops a nation because, come tomorrow  at around 3:00pm, just about everyone in the country will stop what they are doing to watch, or listen to, the running of the Cup.  If you happen to live in Melbourne, you get to stop for a hell of a lot more than that.  We get the WHOLE day off work.  Seriously.  We don’t go to work all day because for about 5 minutes in the afternoon some horses run around a track.  It’s awesome, the most mad and random holiday ever!!!

And because we’re not working, if people aren’t actually going to the races, they have parties and bbq’s or set up parties in the car park at the track, kind of like tail gating but classier.  Every one dresses up and the weather is generally good – it’s party time here!!!    Apart from the hay fever.  That’s still sucking.

Melbourne Cup Crab and Pineapple Appetizer
Melbourne Cup Crab and Pineapple Appetizer

And what better way to celebrate your Cup Day holiday, than this adorable vintage salad from Rosemary Mayne-Wilson’s Salads for All Seasons and the accompanying MC Cocktail which I made up to go along with it?

The unifying element between the two is pineapple.  And can I just say.  Forget Chanel #5.

Pineapple has got to be the best smell in the world.  When I opened that can?  I  just wanted to take a big swim in that glorious scent.  Soooo good. And yes, I used pineapple from a can.  Fresh pineapple is great.  If you happen to live in Cambodia…OMG, the best, sweetest most heaven scented pineapple ever…or you have a couple of spare hours to pfaff about with peeling and coring and taking the eyes out and blah blah blah.  As far as I am concerned, canned pineapple is the way to go.

Melbourne Cup Appetiser 3
Melbourne Cup Appetiser 3

What was not so good was the tinned crab.  It was….fairly bland is a nice way of putting it.  Completely tasteless would be another.  Despite that, the pineapple was sweet and the dressing was surprisingly good.  I think that if you used fresh crab meat this would become super good.

RMW recommends decorating this with crab legs.  Even if I had made this using fresh crab I would find that a bit creepy.  I used some chopped up chives and mint (both can I add, fresh from my garden)!

Alternatively you could forgo piling the crab into and onto the pineapple rings and mix them together and serve in these amazing bits of crabby kitsch!

Crab Salad Bowls
Crab Salad Bowls

I would still use the watercress to line the crab bowls.  That peppery goodness added a real bit of zing to this dish.

But I will tell you something totally weird.  As I was making it, I believed I had spotted a huge flaw in the logic of this salad.  Cos that’s the kind of thing I think about,  The logic of food.  As I may have said a couple of times before, it’s nice to see that Philosophy major isn’t going to waste!

So, here was my concern.  You pile your crab meat onto and into the hole of your pineapple ring.  However, the law of gravity would suggest that when you picked up your pineapple ring that the crab meat in the hole would not, should not lift with the ring….

Weird thing is?  It totally does.  Well nearly totally does.  A smidgeon of crab may remain on the plate but it will lift.  You need to pack it in fairly tight though.

I would definitely make this again.  But I would definitely use fresh crab meat.

MC - Midori and Chartreuse Cocktail
MC – Midori and Chartreuse Cocktail

So, what do you do with the leftover juice from the can of pineapple?  Well, if life gives you pineapple juice, I say make a super refreshing and tasty as hell cocktail.  I also happened to have a bottle of Midori hanging about.  It was given to me as a housewarming present when I moved into my old apartment.  How on earth it managed to survive 13 years I have no idea.  Anyway on that bottle was a tag and on that tag was a recipe for a cocktail called a 24/7 which was Midori, Chartreuse, lime cordial and pineapple juice.  I made this and it was ok.  Then I made a second one where I subbed in some fresh lemon juice for the lime cordial and it was much better.  Then I made a third…(see what I mean about being surprised that bottle hadn’t been drained long ago?)  where I added a splash of ginger beer.  And ladies and gentlemen, we had a winner!

The MC Cocktail
The MC Cocktail

I’m calling my version the MC – Midori and Chartreuse, Melbourne Cup…

Oh, and the left over salad dressing?  Was really good on some oysters the following day! It had that Bloody Mary Shot vibe about it.  Kind of retro in it’s own way!

Oysters with Tomato - Horseradish Dressing
Oysters with Tomato – Horseradish Dressing

I will be spending Cup Day cooking up a Joan Crawford inspired Romantic dinner for two courtesy of Jenny at Silver Screen Suppers…stay tuned, I think it’s going to be awesome!  Whatever you do, I hope it’s fabulous!

Print

Melbourne Cup Crab & Pineapple Appetizer and MC Cocktail

Ingredients

Scale

For the Appetizer

  • 6 pineapple rings
  • 400grams (14oz) crab meat (preferably fresh)
  • 1 bunch watercress
  • Mint and Chopped Chives to serve (optional)

For The Tomato Horseradish Dressing

  • 1 tsp prepared horseradish
  • 1/2 cup tomato juice
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp worchestershire sauce
  • salt & pepper to taste

For the MC Cocktail

  • 30ml (1 oz) Midori
  • 15 ml (1/2 oz) green chartreuse
  • 15 ml (1/2 oz) lemon juice
  • Pineapple juice
  • Ginger Beer
  • Ice

Instructions

For the Tomato – Horseradish dressing (can be made in advance)

  1. Mix all the ingredients together and chill

For the Melbourne Cup Crab and Pineapple Appetizer

  1. Arrange the watercress on a large plate or six small plates.
  2. Place the pineapple on top of the watercress.
  3. Mix 1-2 tsp of the dressing through the crab -just enough to help it stick together. Pile the crab onto the pineapple rings
  4. Spoon a little bit of the sauce over the crab (a little goes a long way, so go easy) or serve the dressing on the side. Sprinkle with the chives and mint.

For the MC Cocktail

  1. Fill a long glass with ice. Add the Midori, Green Chartreuse and Lemon Juice. Add pineapple juice to about 2 cm below the rim of the glass.
  2. Top with ginger beer.

 

Fruity Devils…. and a Life Check

  Ever have those moments where you take a good long hard look at yourself and wonder how on earth you ended up in a certain place? Where your life took that turn?

I had one of those tonight.  And it wasn’t pretty. Unlike these Fruity Devils which we will get to in due course. 

Fruity Devils1
Fruity Devils1

 So, let’s imagine my life as a movie.  Not a very glamorous movie.  But a movie nonetheless. We’ll start with a close up…

Eight o’clock Friday night and I am sitting alone. At home.  Wearing a sweatshirt that had seen better days about five years ago and yoga pants.  Well, that’s what the shop I bought them in called them.  They may have never seen the inside of a yoga studio or known a down dog but technically they are yoga pants.

None of that is is the problem.  He has a new job where he is working nights and I am perfectly comfortable both in my own company and with my attire. 

My PhotoFy_09_19_21_56

So, lets draw the camera back and see where the problem may lie.  Sitting on my lap is a plate of chopped up bananas smothered in peanut butter, wrapped in bacon and grilled.  I had a grand idea to do a take on a Devils on Horseback and call it Elvis on Horseback.  It didn’t really work…Anyway, bacon and peanut butter is admittedly  not the healthiest combination on earth but it wasn’t that that had me cringing either.  I count eating weird stuff as R&D.  I’m eating it so you don’t have to!  And you, know sometimes in this blogging lark you have to take the (super) crunchy with the smooth. 

And boom! 

That peanut butter gag was like the Spanish Inquisition.  (Because no one expects the Spanish Inquisition). 

I’ll stop now. 

Maybe the problem will be apparent if we draw the camera back even further…

My PhotoFy_09_19_21_58
  Yes, that is a very hefty glass of wine in front of me…could that be what has me in a such a state of consternation?  Drinking alone? Am I worried about some incipient alcoholism /the state of my liver / my ability to get up and go the gym tomorrow morning?

No, no and resoundingly no.  It’s Friday, it’s been a long, hard week and if a girl wants a drink in the privacy of her own home, she should be able to have one.  Or two.  Don’t judge me.

Peachy Devils with Pomegranate Molasses
Peachy Devils with Pomegranate Molasses

 So what it is?  Why am I pausing for a moment of reflection? Not that I am alone at home on a Friday night, wearing let’s just call them “comfortable” clothes; not that I am eating a banana smothered in peanut butter then wrapped in bacon; not that I am drinking alone but that I am doing all of the above whilst watching a movie where Robert Pattinson is playing Salvador Dali. 

What???????

Why?

WHHYYYYYYY???????

I really need to re-evaluate some of my life choices.  I may need professional help.  Or at the very least some movie recommendations….

Pineapple Devils
Pineapple Devils

 

Who on God’s green earth thought that was a good idea?  (Me apparently seeing as it was on my Netflix queue).  But then again, I’m alone at home on a Friday night eating bacon, bananas and peanut butter!  My judgement is at best questionable. 

But apart from me, who else thought it was a good idea?  It’s TERRIBLE. Well, to be honest, the film itself is probably not so bad.  R Patz, however is more wooden than the stake that should have been driven through his cold dead heart in any one of the billion Twilight films. 

Oh, God, why am I still watching it?

Make it stop…someone please make it stop!!!!!

And does anyone else think Vamp boy looks a lot like the Blackadder?

robert-pattinson-little-ashes-3

Blackadder2jpg

 

I have no idea what possessed me to pick that film.  What is far easier to track is how I ended up thinking bananas and bacon were a good idea. The seed of THAT insanity lies within the book club. One of the ladies brought along one of her mother’s (?) Women’s Weekly cookbooks from the early sixties.  It was AWESOME.  And whilst I really wanted to just grab it and run….I contented myself with flicking through the pages.

Which is when I saw the recipe for Jaffa Devils.  Orange slices wrapped in bacon and grilled.  Two ingredients, easy to remember.  So I made them.  They were ok.  They weren’t the best thing I’ve ever eaten but they sure weren’t the worst!  And it works in theory – bacon and orange mix well at breakfast…so why not in an appetizer? (Mind you, it’s that kind of thinking that leads to coffee flavoured scrambled eggs…and Little Ashes, which incidentally, STILL watching).

Jaffa Devils
Jaffa Devils

 The problem was, the Jaffa Devils became like a gateway drug.  For a while there I was utterly obsessed with wrapping fruit in bacon.  I kind of like it when food is both good and bad for you, bacon and fruit, peanut butter and celery, cranberry juice and booze..it’s the way o’ the world, yin and yang, toxifying and detoxifying in equal measure.  

I wrapped peaches, pineapple, a tangelo…I couldn’t leave the citrus alone.  And the banana.  The banana was not good.  The tangelo, like the orange, was a bit meh…..

The peach and the pineapple?  OMG. Super.  The Bacon and Peach Combo worked best with a sauce made from Pomegranate Molasses.  By which I mean some Pomegranate Molasses poured into a bowl.  But you could use some reduced Balsamic if you did not have the Pomegranate Molasses.  The Bacon and Pineapple Devil worked with both a sweet chilli and a BBQ sauce. 

Peach, Pinepapple and Tangelo Devils
Peach, Pineapple and Tangelo Devils

 Pretty damn good, even if I do say so myself! And super easy and super quick to make as well. 

In all honesty, give the banana and orange ones a miss.  But do try the peach and pineapple.  They are gold!  And for some Dali gold, skip Little Ashes and watch this clip of the real Salvador Dali utterly bamboozling the folks on What’s My Line

[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:10]
  Have a great week!

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