Saturday 12 May 2012

Peanut Butter Biscuits

Everyone said this would be a lovely time of the year to be in the final stages of pregnancy. Sadly, everyone lied. I had visions of myself wafting around the garden in the sunshine, drinking homemade lemonade whilst wearing a kaftan. But the reality has been less 70's Earth Mother and more 90's Spinster History Teacher. The weather has been so awful, the heating has been on constantly, I've been smothering myself in anything made of wool and my agoraphobic tendancies have started to creep back. For example, the other day, I needed a lunch pudding. Anything would have done. A chocolate bar, a cake, a biscuit, even a yoghurt would have done, but we didn't have anything in the house. So rather than go outside in the wind and rain to cross the road to the corner shop, I made some biscuits even though I didn't have all the ingredients. I now realise the importance of an egg when baking. It's to bind the  ingredients together, no egg = a biscuit that disintegrates as soon as you touch it. Luckily the lack of egg didn't detract from the taste, it just meant the end product had to be inhaled rather than eaten in a solid form. 

To make Peanut Butter Biscuits x 14

Shopping List:

50g Crunchy Peanut Butter
50g Butter
50g Caster Sugar
45g Brown Sugar
100g Plain Flour
1 x EGG (beaten)

* Preheat the oven to 180C
* Mix in a bowl the peanut butter, butter and sugars until creamed and well combined.
* Stir in the beaten egg. Mix well.
* Add in the flour and mix well again until it resembles a dough.
* Divide the mixture evenly into small balls (about a walnut size), place them on a lined and greased baking sheet and squash down with your fingers or the back of a fork.


* Bake for 20 - 25 minutes then cool on a wire rack.


(Photo taken with extreme care).

* Snort biscuit with a nice hot drink.
* Fin.

I said to my friend the other day that I was feeling a bit like the Pope or the Queen Mother. Unfortunately if anyone wants to see me, they are having to come to me, or at least my postcode, rather than me to them. It's not a lazy thing, its more a weather + waddle x possibility of slipping over situation. Luckily I have had a couple of visitors this week which has been a nice break from eating extremely crumbly biscuits and deciding whether to wear the black jumper or the grey jumper.

On Wednesday night, our friends Mole and Mrs Mole came East and we went to L'entrepot for wine and food. The wine is still delicious but after 3 visits in month I've decided it's quite a pricey place to go (and I didn't even pay!). Wine is between £5- £6 for a small glass of wine and you have to order a lot of food in order for it to touch the sides. On reflection, on this particular visit, we did get slightly carried away with the food ordering and I'm pretty sure we ended up trying the entire menu which was far too much/greedy. But its either order a few of the side dishes and still feel hungry or order the lot and feel like the famous over stuffed walrus at the Horniman Museum.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessicamulley/3167511342/


As well as wine, they also sell beer, this one was very nice and tasted like squash. 


Charcuterie plate and broad bean and parmesan bruschetta.


Cheese plate and baked ham plate.


The photos got worse for some reason at this point, my one glass of Chardonnay obviously had more of an effect than I thought. This is Guinea Fowl Gnocchi and some sort of Cabbage and Caper dish that I can't remember the name of.


Confit Duck Leg. Our table looked like something from Henry VIII's house by the time we had finished. The only thing's missing were a roast Peacock and a beheaded Queen.

On Thursday, I had another visitor who was coming for lunch but had driven from Fulham which ended up taking over 2 hours. I'm surprised she stuck with the journey to be honest but she did and by the time she got to mine it was 2pm and I was ravenous for food. As an ex-boyfriend from the North East used to say, "I was so hungry I would have eaten a scabby hoss" (horse). So we trudged through the rain to The Old Ship on Sylvester Path, E8. 


I don't know how long this hotel/pub has been open as its a little bit off the beaten path in Hackney but I saw it for the first time a coupe of months ago when I was looking into local hotels for a friend. The place was empty when we arrived, which made me a bit nervous to eat there but I think it had more to do with the fact that it was pissing down rather than the food not being good. The staff were super friendly, the chef even came out of the open kitchen and wished me luck with the baby when we left and the food was pretty good to boot!


Cheeseburger and chips. Very precise pile of chips but were slightly undercooked in my humble opinion. The burger was nice although I didn't eat the top bit of the bun.


Onion rings, very crispy.


Delicious home made chocolate torte with berries.

In conclusion, The Old Ship is definitely somewhere I'd go back to for a nice local pub lunch and I would score it a high 7 crows nests out of a possible 10.

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