Not the Hannibal Lecter recipe obviously. This is in honour of Jussi who found six 250gr kilner jars under our bed. Amazing eh? A present from Helen apparently (yes that Helen, no not that one).
As they are gently simmering on their bain marie here is the recipe - no idea if it's worked yet of course - but this is what I did. Most recipes mix liver with a fair amount of meat. We didn't have any meat but there was about 250g of cheap bacon offcuts so I used that.
Anyway - put about 200gr of butter to a small pan and on a low heat fry a couple of onions and a load of garlic.
Take your livers - two in this case, and finely chop discarding any tubing. Take your hearts - three in this case - and try to extricate as much meat from them as you can - which really isn't much - but as I said in the intro we were short of meat. Take the bacon and finely chop - making sure to discard fibrous bits.
Make bread crumbs out of about 6 inches of baguette.
Put all of this in a big bowl along with a good couple of glugs of fino sherry (I found recipes using cognac, port or sherry - I found the sherry first), a couple of slodges of milk, a good wee shake of dried sage, and of dried thyme, a wee shake of mixed spice and of white pepper cos you can't be bothered wandering round the house AGAIN trying to find the bloody pepper mill AGAIN. And salt.
Whizz. Recipes variously suggest mincing, zapping in a food processor or even forcing through a sieve - frankly a ridiculous idea. All we have is a soup whizzer and surprisingly it worked a treat.
You now have a pink sludge. Some recipes suggest tasting it at this stage by frying a little and checking for seasoning. I couldn't be arsed - I mean it was hot. But the sludge had a pleasant enough aroma.
Decant into very clean kilner jars, leaving a good gap at the top. This recipe nicely filled six jars. Put in a bain marie, bring to a simmer with the tops of the jars loosely on and simmer for I'm not quite sure how long - but I reckon I'll leave em for about an hour. Allow to cool slightly. Tightly close and bingo is your uncle. Should keep in the fridge for a month or so, and many recipes suggest it'll freeze well too (but personally I'm not sure about trying to freeze kilner jars).
Most pate recipes say you should weight the pate down as it cools. I might do this if I can figure out a way of doing it - but at the moment I can't.
Fingers crossed!
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Firstly, there is nothing more important than me and my family. The most precious thing I can give them (including me) is time. In my job, with all it's pressures, I singularly failed to do this. So we run for the hills and try to redress the balance.
Secondly, climate change is happening. It's a cataclysm, the scope of which is beyond our comprehension. This is why we are doing so little to stop it - we just cant imagine the scale of the upheavals to come, and we can't imagine how we, as individuals, can stop it.
Everything is stacked against effective action. Our economy is driven by consumerism and it is consumerism that is driving climate change. Our political leaders are paralysed - to curb consumerism would cripple the economic engine. We increasingly define ourselves by our economic position and the things we buy. We are what we buy. What politician dare restrict our ability to buy, our ability to define ourselves? It would attack our very self and would be political suicide.
And anyway, the real power lies with money - and the people with money want us to consume and they spend millions every second of the day persuading us to consume more. What hope do we have against such power? And everything we buy pumps a little more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Thirdly, I am no saint. I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to change my life for the benefit of myself, and, I hope, the planet. Ultimately my reasons for doing this are selfish, and although I'll do what I can to keep my carbon footprint low, I'll make many choices that are not so good for the planet. Like anyone, I can only voluntarily make changes to my life at the speed I can. I don't intend to beat myself up over this - I do intend to change faster than most.
Fourthly, there is hope. Our lust to consume is a very recent phenomena. Not so long ago we principally defined ourselves by our relationships with friends and family and place and we defined ourselves by our usefulness to society. I believe that climate change will force us out of consumerism, and in its place we will find those core values, and rediscover a sense of wellbeing that is so missing from our current fractured existence.
There are lots of examples where this is starting to happen. The transition town movement is one - people getting together and learning to appreciate the things and people around them. I played a small part in helping Sustaining Dunbar get off the ground. (http://edubuzz.org/blogs/sustainingdunbar/about-us) What I found there were people striving to build a positive and resilient future and there are transition towns popping up all over the place - a really positive movement. (find out more about transition towns)
Fifthly, At the end of the day it's all bollocks. So let's all go off and have some fun - it's the most important thing we can do - but let's just try to do it without killing the planet in the process.
If you think there's something wrong, change what you can to make it better. I'm trying to lower my carbon footprint, step out from the 9-5 grind, rise from the weight of leadership and responsibility and have some fun again.
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Where I"m coming from - !CAUTION! a bit of a polemic
Secondly, climate change is happening. It's a cataclysm, the scope of which is beyond our comprehension. This is why we are doing so little to stop it - we just cant imagine the scale of the upheavals to come, and we can't imagine how we, as individuals, can stop it.
Everything is stacked against effective action. Our economy is driven by consumerism and it is consumerism that is driving climate change. Our political leaders are paralysed - to curb consumerism would cripple the economic engine. We increasingly define ourselves by our economic position and the things we buy. We are what we buy. What politician dare restrict our ability to buy, our ability to define ourselves? It would attack our very self and would be political suicide.
And anyway, the real power lies with money - and the people with money want us to consume and they spend millions every second of the day persuading us to consume more. What hope do we have against such power? And everything we buy pumps a little more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Thirdly, I am no saint. I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to change my life for the benefit of myself, and, I hope, the planet. Ultimately my reasons for doing this are selfish, and although I'll do what I can to keep my carbon footprint low, I'll make many choices that are not so good for the planet. Like anyone, I can only voluntarily make changes to my life at the speed I can. I don't intend to beat myself up over this - I do intend to change faster than most.
Fourthly, there is hope. Our lust to consume is a very recent phenomena. Not so long ago we principally defined ourselves by our relationships with friends and family and place and we defined ourselves by our usefulness to society. I believe that climate change will force us out of consumerism, and in its place we will find those core values, and rediscover a sense of wellbeing that is so missing from our current fractured existence.
There are lots of examples where this is starting to happen. The transition town movement is one - people getting together and learning to appreciate the things and people around them. I played a small part in helping Sustaining Dunbar get off the ground. (http://edubuzz.org/blogs/sustainingdunbar/about-us) What I found there were people striving to build a positive and resilient future and there are transition towns popping up all over the place - a really positive movement. (find out more about transition towns)
Fifthly, At the end of the day it's all bollocks. So let's all go off and have some fun - it's the most important thing we can do - but let's just try to do it without killing the planet in the process.
Things I"m going to miss
- Jour Fixe - especially Tagd and CDs from Sean
- Lennie's coffee, bacon rolls and flapjacks, always served with such...erm...charm
- Liz's happy hello in the morning
- Unpacking the Crunchy veg box (people of Dunbar - use them! - http://www.crunchycarrot.co.uk/crunchy_carrot_4/services.html)
- Our wood burning stove - we had a hybrid - http://www.dowlingstoves.com/stoves.htm
- Oh and that pumped up sense of self importance you get from being the big cheese
- Financial security
My quick links
Cheapskate jazz collections
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