Wednesday 16 February 2011

Spicy Chicken Carbonara

I said in my first post that I enjoyed cooking and I was quite proud of myself the other day when I managed to cobble together an interesting twist on a carbonara using whatever I could find in the cupboards. I thought after my slushy previous post I'd reward you for your kind tweets by sharing it with you.
The pictures below are the ingredients I used for myself, I'll work out a full recipe and post it onto the BBC Good Food Website



Firstly you'll need garlic, finely chopped onion and red pepper for colour and some chopped fresh basil.










Next cut some cooked chicken and diced bacon or ham












You'll also need pasta, eggs, black pepper, oregano, paprika, chilli flakes and parmesan










And a cup of tea (this can be substitued with a bottle of white wine)











Whisk the egg and add pepper, oregano, chilli flakes and parmesan to taste










Put the pasta on to boil. I used fusilli, tagliatelle is traditional but anything you have in the cupboard will do










Fry the onion and garlic til soft










Then add the meat, red pepper, stir in some paprika and heat through










Once the pasta is cooked drain and stir into the mixture, then add the egg mixture and stir, letting the pasta cook the egg. You could add cream once the egg is cooked









Garnish with fresh chopped basil et voila!











Finally remember to turn the stove off (I forgot!)










Enjoy!

Unless anything exciting happens in the next week, I'm going to concentrate on a couple of pieces for my sister blog, A Plus Musings. Another parody and my first attempt at a stand up sketch will be coming up next week.

A New Hope

I haven't mentioned the reason behind my blog title yet. I set this blog up as an overflow for my random musings on Twitter but as I've set up 'A Plus Musings' for that now I can be a bit more deep on here.

I set this up, and for that matter joined Twitter as a release for stuff rattling around in my head.
Just before New Year 2010 my ex-partner of four years split up with me, this was also only 3 weeks before my 30th birthday. Understandably 2010 was a pretty bad year for me, and I hoped this blog was the beginning of a better year for me, a new hope. As my followers on Twitter have probably realised by now, things are looking up for 2011.
I was out in Bournemouth to meet my friend Martin who I hadn't seen since before Christmas and after a drunken evening he decided to call it a night. I thought I'd have another drink before catching the bus home and walked into a quiet bar.
The tart I can be after a few shandies, decided to sit with the prettiest guy in the bar. We got chatting and as it had been a while since I'd been on the gay scene ended up going back to his flat. Next morning we were lying in bed talking and realised we had a lot in common but neither of us were looking for anything serious. We agreed to remain friends but not to mention the R word.
This lasted a couple of days, as we got to know each other better and I brought the subject up again. We have lived similar lives, we had the same interests, we even started to finish each others sentences, it made sense... but the L word was a definite no no...
Skip forward a few more days, we had now spent 5 days together and as we lay down to go to sleep he whispers "I know this is going to sound stupid, but I think I love you." As I held back a touch of eye leakage, I admitted I had held back from saying that for a couple of days because it's the kind of thing guaranteed to scare someone off but I agreed whole heartedly. The following day we had things to do and parted ways, I've never missed someone's company so much and after going back to see him the following day we have barely spent time apart.

So apart from gushing about how happy I am, what I'm trying to say is no matter how hard things are, even if it takes a year or five years to find it you never know when life will take an unexpected turn.
After only two weeks my life is turning around, and close friends are already noticing a change in me. This is the beginning of a New Hope and hopefully this will see the return of the Jedi in me*

*excuse the lame Star Wars puns xx