How to break things and eat chips twice in a week.

Arsenal won again last night. This time our youngsters took on the mighty Wigan in the Carling Cup. We trashed them 3-0, and looked pretty darn good doing it.

Which is more than can be said for the things coming out of the North London kitchen these past two days. I mean look at this:


Its supposed to be a pain au chocolate. Not quite the effect I was going for. I think the milk I added the yeast to was too hot. Oh well. The pastry is lovely and flaky, just not as puffed up as I had hoped. Oh well. I'm sure we'll cope, it'll just have to be a very dense pastry with our coffee on Saturday morning (and the following seven mornings!).

That wasn't the beginning though, oh no. Yesterday I began the experiment with dried beans, and dramatically underestimated how long they would take to cook. I'd soaked them for 24 hours, and yet after 40 mins cooking in my cassoulet they were still rock hard. This would have been fine any other night, but last night we were against the clock and had to dash out of the door to the match.

So yes, it was chips for dinner and cookies at half time. A nicely rounded meal of carbohydrate. I won't knock it though, it keep us warm through the cold November night. No wait, I think that was all the jumping up and down celebrating goals. Cassoulet tomorrow, after hours of boiling in the afternoon.

I did however make one nice thing tonight. Homemade baked beans, this time boiling the butter beans rapidly before actually making the dish. Note to self: boil the beans forever before you add to a dish, that's the answer!

Hopefully the next couple of days will be more successful. I'm afraid there probably won't be any more baking, at least not for a while, but I shall be out and about with the camera, so hopefully I'll have something to tell you about to keep up my blog-a-day November habit.