k-punk

Proper posts tomorrow, but for now a few bits and bobs:
1. Most popular recipes from my birthday party on Saturday
Roast beetroot with honey and rosemary
(Try this one even if you don’t think you like beetroot)
Ingredients
1 lb raw beetroot, peeled and cut into quarters
2 tbsps olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 dessertspoon dried rosemary
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsps clear honey
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 220 C, 425 F, gas mark 7.
2. Place the beetroot in a roasting tin with the garlic cloves. Sprinke over the oil, rosemary and seasoning. Roast for 45 minutes.
3. Remove the drizzle on the honey and vinegar. Return to the oven and roast for a further 20 minutes.
Tunisian almond and orange cake
(courtesy Sophie Grigson; quick, easy but delicious)
Ingredients
45 g (1.5 oz) slightly stale breadcrumbs
200g (7 oz) caster sugar
100g (3.5 oz) ground almonds
1.5 tsp baking powder
200 ml (7 fl oz) sunflower or vegetable oil
4 eggs
Finely grated zest of 1 large orange
Finely grated zest of half a lemon
Syrup (you can make it without this):
juice of 1 orange
juice of half an orange
85g (3 oz) sugar
2 cloves
1 cinammon stick
Instructions
Mix the breadcrumbs with the sugar, almonds and baking powder. Add the oil and eggs and beat well. Stir in the orange and lemon zest. Pour the mixture into a greased 20cm (8 in) cake tin.
Put into a cold oven and set to heat 190C (375F, gas mark 5). Bake for 40-50 minutes until the cake is a rich brown an a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Cool for 5 minutes in the tin then turn out onto a plate.
While the cake cooks, make the syrup. Bring all the ingredients gently to the boil in a pan, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Simmer for 5 minutes.
Pierce holes in the cake with a skewer while still warm and pour the syrup over it. Leave it to cool, spooning the syrup over the cake every now and then until is soaked up.
2. How low is TV sinking?
I didn’t watch it, but how’s this for a line from a BBC ‘drama’ last nigh? Trevor Eve: ‘Maybe this serial killer is a serial killer of serial killers.’ Was this co-scripted by Chris Morris?
3. Things that made me chuckle
Meant to mention this a while back, but huh’s reference to ‘Rachel Stevens and her Hegel-via-Zizek references to “the other Other”’ (see July 1) split my sides…
Also, Oliver on literal laugh-out-loud form with his tales of oysterless adventures on the buses…’Eez not my problem’…
(btw, he’s right about the view of forests from my flat, but, sadly, there are no parrots. Wild boar, though, absolutely, there’s plenty of them. Bromley, it’s wild.)