Baking: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Difficulty: Easy

Makes 18-24 depending on the size of the cookies you make

Ingredients:

■125g of softened butter plus extra for greasing
■125g of soft brown sugar (or demerara which gives the cookies extra richness)
■1 beaten egg
■200g of self-raising flour
■Pinch of salt
■125g of chocolate chips (drops)
■50g of brazil nuts (optional)

Method

1.Grease a couple of baking trays with a little butter. If you have greaseproof paper, you could line the trays with this – it works wonders!
2.In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
3.Gradually add the beaten egg to the mixture, beating well after each addition
4.Sift the flour into the creamed mixture and blend well
5.Stir in the chocolate and, if you’re using them, the brazil nuts
6.Place heaped teaspoons of the mixture on to the baking trays – do not put more than six cookies to a tray, and make sure there’s plenty of space between the cookies or they will run into each other!
7.Bake in a preheated oven at 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5 for 10-12 or until golden brown (you might have to place the cookies on the top shelf to make them cook quickly
8.When cooked, place the cookies on to a wire rack and wait until completely cooked to enjoy!
Suggestions: Once you’re confident with cooking the choc chip cookies, why not try different flavours? Try making double chocolate by adding cocoa powder to the uncooked mixture, or you could add mixed spice and sultanas for a luxurious taste? If you can cook it in a cookie, try it!

Heston's Feasts: Mostly Gastronomical!

For the past five weeks I've been following Channel 4's series "Heston's Feasts" in which science-minded gastronut Heston Blumenthal picks a theme or era for a banquet for six celebs and redesigns the food associated with the topic. So far he's tackled Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory (i.e. the 60s), the Titanic, Gothic Fairy Tales and the 70s and has yet to tackle the 80s.

Every week Heston himself is the star of the show, getting up to strange antics in all sorts of locations as he tries to suss out what recipes are good and bad by testing them on the British public - not all the results are that great. The joy of this part of the program is that he actually sticks entirely to the original recipes, so he's eaten brains and raw blood, the vile stamina-foods of Sir Walter Scott and has eaten a traditional Moroccan camel recipe just like Lawrence of Arabia (that was the bit of the true story obviously left out of David Lean's film!)

Heston then re-imagines these original recipes to make something more exciting and extraordinary... as well as edible - we've been given the delights of the Humpy Meal (camel meat redifined as Happy-Meal-style fast food), the Pot Heston (a non-processed, fun Pot Noodle that's high on nutrition, low on those pesky E-Numbers) and blood risotto (really not as gruesome as it sounds, it's just a posh risotto with a small amount of concentrated blood, or purer black pudding, with some red beetroot dye to make it look devillishly evil).

Heston's ideas are nearly always inventive but sometimes they fall just that little bit short of the mark. In the weakest episode of the series so far, "Heston's Titanic Feast", Blumenthal swaps invention for the notion that he wants to serve the actual meal that the people on the Titanic never got to experience. As a result, his dishes were flat and uninspired and while all of his food must taste phenomenal, it's hard to get the impression of magic just by watching some celebrities fawn over a plate. Basically, when the fun and games aren't there Heston's Feasts turns into a posturing, high-brow show that could easily be found on inferior cooking shows like Masterchef, or even The Restaurant.

Luckily though, that hasn't happened in most of the episodes in this series. While that single episode was tedious to watch, Heston's charm and intelligence are there for all to see - if you can stand some of the slightly sycophantic celebrities and their comments, the gastronomy on the show is brilliant. If you haven't already seen any of Heston's Feasts, please try and see an episode (er, just not the Titanic one!)

Prince of Persia: Already A Letdown?

Coming soon to a large multiplex cinema near you: Jerry Bruckheimer's take on Prince of Persia:



I have to apologize for the slightly dodgy picture quality here; what I was trying to pull off didn't quite work I'm afraid. Anyway, any film by Jerry Bruckheimer will no doubt have its share of thrills and spills and also a large spoonful of wooden dialogue (including clangers, plus some explanations that we're frankly patronised by) but his films always make for a good night out, right?

Well maybe not if, like me, you're a disgruntled fan of the original Prince of Persia games. First of all, the Prince never had a name, secondly, he wasn't so wooden in the way he talked. No doubt Jake Gyllenhaal can wield a sword very well (he'll have to, otherwise it'll be "Prince of Persia: The Laughable Rogue") and Gemma Arterton as his love-interest Tamina will prove to be a good sidekick. Plus we'll be able to tell who the bad guy is because he'll be the one wearing the most eye-liner. We've got all that, but none of this:



That's right: BEAST BASHING! In Bruckheimer's version, the Prince will not slay a single zombie or kick a demon into the pits of oblivion - all of the enemies are human. To my mind this defies one of the points of Prince of Persia: it's a platformer where you get to kill some inhuman beasties using some flashy swashbuckling moves. It would have been better if, like in the video game, the Prince used the Dagger of Time to stop a zombie or demon from jumping on him. Surely the film needs to have an element of the supernatural in it? Even if the villain eventually turns into that devil-god monster from the fourth installment in the end, at least it'll keep the purists happy.

I suppose if you're not familiar with the game, then you'll enjoy the film as a piece of escapism. If not, well, at least they've got the Prince's clothes right!

My Bank Holiday

I put an excalamtion mark at the end of the post title to make this seem a lot more interesting than it probably has been: basically Bank Holidays are always the same. You've got football on the telly, rubbish TV programmes, the weather's terrible and everyone thinks that it's a good idea to rush to the seaside because, er, that's what you do on a Bank Holiday.

Well, it's been pretty much the same for me. Today was the seaside day, and even though I didn't see much of the beach (because it's absolutely freezing cold out there) I did get my mitts on fish and chips:



Well it's actually a fish cake, which is why it's so round! I have to say that these paticular variety of fish and chips are very delicious - it's a good job that I don't live nearer to where these are made otherwise I'd be the size of a house! I had ice cream too, but I'll have you know that I was good and only opted for a small tub: I'm not the pig I may seem to be!

In other Bank Holiday news, I was so desperate for a game that takes longer than 10 hours to complete (including min-games, collectibles, side-quests and all the rest of it) that I resorted to getting my ancient Nintendo 64 working again:



I decided to start with Donkey Kong, since it's a game I haven't played for ages - I think this game actually holds the record for the amount of collectible items in a single game (including bananas, golden bananas, fairies, battle crowns, blueprints, banana medals, boss keys, oranges, ammunition crates, two special tokens, banana coins, headphones and camera film. That's quite a long list!) Also on the cards to play is the first two Banjo-Kazooie games (Banjo-Tooie is hilarious and also takes an age to complete 100%) and Zelda: Majora's Mask, for me the most criminally underrated in the franchise.

So other than this and blogging it's been a pretty mundane Bank Holiday really. I'll sign off with Beck's "Youthless" a song that's been on repeat for me over the weekend and also has a very simple yet oddly ingenious video:

30 Rock Season 4: Let The Hilarity Commence!

Last week the first episode of the hilarious fourth series of 30 Rock started and it hasn't lost any of its charm and sparkle: actually, I think it might have gained a little something. Already this season we've seen less popular-culture gags and more focus on the characters (Kenneth not wanting to be a liar, Liz coping with the fact that she's a rude New-Yorker...) That's always good of course: characters who were pushed into the background in Series 3 and pretty much only had the odd cemeo appearance are given the major roles they once had.

Of course, we still get a lot of the strange Tracy Jordan (an alias of Tracy Morgan. I say alias because he's pretty much just playing himself but with a different name), the one-liners of Liz (the ever-funny Tina Fey) and the unashamed, uncaring businesslike mannerisms of Jack (Alec Baldwin, who sparkles in the role. No wonder he's won so many Emmys).

After seeing the first two episodes (I still have the third one taped) I can safely say that it could be a bonanza season for a show that's never really dipped in form at any time: the ongoing storyline of trying to get a new cast member should prove to be comedy gold.

If you haven't already seen it, then check it out: hopefully you won't be disappointed!

SCG: Branching Out!

Hey guys! You can now become a fan of my personal page on Facebook! Exciting times! If you want to do so, just click on my badge to the right of this and if you do become a fan then I'll respect you forever - seriously, at the minute I don't have any fans so I'll really appreciate your support in this new endeavour. Hopefully you'll get your friends to follow me as well so we can have an even bigger community here on SCG.

Thank guys!

Faux Fur Feelings

It's been a bit of a bonanza week for me (yes, yes, I'm well aware it's only Tuesday but I'm counting back to last week)! Among my many CD purchases I've actually gone out and bought some clothes - it has to be said at this point that I don't go out and buy clothes every week like some people. My reasons for this are that a.) I don't have the money to spend lavishly like that and b.) my wardrobe wouldn't be able to handle the bulge if I did. But alongside some much nedded jeggings (you know, those jean-look leggings that are ultra comfortable and cheap), I picked up this little number:








It's not real fur, obviously! I'm not like that but for some reason this hip-length three-quarter sleeved leopard print jacket really appealed to me. After wearing it to work yesterday I found an extra use for it too: it keeps you really, really warm. Sweltering at one point actually but maybe that was because I was pegging it to actually get to work after a business-related detour. Oh, and it feels lovely. And it was half-price! Bargain! So I guess the big question really is if you really want to wear this coat like me or is it just that little bit too... OTT? Of course, I think it's fabulous - what about you?