Gave up sugar for lent and now havetoo much of it at home? Here are ten uses for sugar I bet you never thought of … it even tells you how to get your fire going and (in an unrelated tip) how to soothe a burnt tongue.

10 Extraordinary uses for Sugar

Nice video explaining how to crack and egg so you don’t get shell in your mixture and raw egg running down the side of the bowl.

The secret? Use a flat surface!

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/video/default.asp?newVideo=y&docid=23354&Extcode=L1DN1BA00

Here’s another kitchen hack you can try, instead of messing up your regular kitchen brush or sponge cut up an onion bag. I guess it will have scourability and is good for the environment but whether it works or not is a different question. Answers on a postcard please.

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/004744.php

Here’s a novel idea from http://www.re-nest.com on how to seal plastic bags, as bottle caps are not normally recyclable you can save the planet while you are at it.

Reuse your bottle caps

Have you ever wondered if the alcohol you drown the Christmas pudding is actually burnt off in the flame or if baking soda really does absorb nasty niffs? Look no further: http://www.pgacon.com/KitchenMyths.htm will tell you all you need to know plus some other interesting facts (or non-facts).

Print it out and carry it around so you can amaze people with your pedantry when they tell you something this is not true.

The countdown is upon us and daytime TV is full of TV programmes telling us how to have the best Christmas dinner ever and how to make your dinner table look like something Harry Potter would be proud to sit at during a Hogwarts feast. Nothing wrong with that if you have all day to do it but the preference at Messy Towers is on getting the job done and doing it well with the minimum of fuss. You may find this approach leaves time to actually enjoy yourself rather than spending your day sweeping up the tiny little stars you have scattered over the table and getting butter out of your pine garland…or the pine needles from your butter, whichever. Here are ten tips for a stress free day.

• Don’t go overboard on expensive Champagne to greet guests with, try a Cava or Prosecco. Add a Cherry and/or a tiny dash of Creme de Cassis to give it the special look.

• Instead of buying luxury Christmas crackers stick with the “fortune teller fish” variety and place a lottery scratch card on each setting. Pre-dinner card scratching is a great ice-breaker.

• May be obvious but serve a cold starter, this can be prepared hours before kick off and put aside. Prawn cocktail or smoked salmon are the classics. Don’t buy farmed smoked salmon, use the money you saved on Champagne to buy wild salmon.

• Don’t worry about matching the wine to the course or having to buy the traditional Christmas wines. Everybody is flogging Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Chablis at the moment but there is no rule to say what you have to serve or there is no rule to say that expense is a measure of quality. Some of the lesser Chateauneufs, for which you will pay €15-20, can be overly aggressive.

• Do your roast potatoes in duck fat. Par boil the spuds for a few minutes, let them cool slightly, score the outside and roast. This is one fancification that is worth doing but make sure you put aside some regular roasters for your vegetarian sister.

• If you are not a Turkey fan, or do not care about having a giant carcass on the table for show, then get a scaled down version from your butcher. You can get a breast, crown or a rolled and boned version. These will actually fit in the oven and prevent you from having to get up and 5am to turn the oven on.

• Prepare the veg beforehand. Even better prep and cook the veg beforehand. Red cabbage or ratatoullie are great candidates to cook the night, or even a few days, before. Both will actually benefit from a few days in the fridge to give the flavours time to infuse. Do the stuffing the day before. Do the ham the day before.

• If people don’t like brussel sprouts then dispense with them. No amount of 7-Up or Cider or bacon or wood shavings will disguise the fact they are still sprouts.

• Same goes for Turkey. Turkey is turkey and no amount of brining, marinading, basting or whatever will disguise the fact. Do your best to keep it moist but dispense with overly complicated techniques. If you have enough stuffing and nice veg to go with it nobody will bother about three or four slices of turkey being a little dry. Effort versus return. This one is a bit subjective and really depends on how much value you put on the turkey.

• Don’t invite Tiger Woods if your porn star auntie is attending.

To sum up in three words, “keep it simple”.

Happy Christmas.

Feb 5th 2009: I’ve updated this to include the wine recommendation below. Apologies for the rehash of an old post but I thought Lar had a great idea to match wines with recipes from different food blogs. It’s a fun way to navigate the different food blogs out there.

Jan 14th 2009: Work has been a bit mental since the new year so I’ve been short on blog time. Aside from trying to figure out how best to cook roast beef I’ve also been pretty short on cook time. The roast beef results will follow, I finally nailed the Yorkshire puddings which is a post and a series of photos in itself, but for now here’s a salad you can fling together in a matter of seconds. It doesn’t have to be long and complicated to be good. Adiós muchachos, vaya con Dios.

Ingredients (for two)
1 Bag of Supermarket mixed leaves
10 fresh sun-dried tomato segments.
6 slices of Parma Ham
1 small pack of crumbly goats cheese. Cabridoux is widely available in Irish supermarkets, anything really, doesn’t even have to be goat’s cheese.
Extra virgin olive oil or Balsamic vinegar

Method.
Place a pile of leaves on each plate. Arrange the sun dried tomato segments around the outside. Tear up the Parma Ham and add onto the leaves. Crumble the cheese on top. Sprinkle with a little olive oil or Balsamic vinegar. Serve with crusty bread etc.

For a wine to go with this check out this post from sourgrapes.ie, excellent idea Lar and thanks!

That’s all

The annual Christmas get-together was held in Messy Towers on the 26th December this year, along with the Pineapple and Cheese Hedgehogs and the Ferrero Rocher we planned to spoil the guests even further by investing in a Heineken 5L Keg. I’ve had real kegs in the house before complete with gas and coolers but this is a party fellow that you can pop in the fridge with no extra setup needed. It is sizeable enough but should fit into the fridge with a little forward planning. However it will probably be at the expense of something less important, like the children’s food.

The time had come to crack it open. The tap just clicks into the top, you press down and pour. Very easy so far. We got a glass of foam. Tried again. More foam. Five litres later all it would do was pour foam. Five litres of foam and a lot of thirsty guests. If the same thing hadn’t happened last year I would have thought it was bad luck or maybe pilot-error but these things are a true nightmare. Luckily we had backup tins of beer. Never buy one.

This is a great dish, it’s a bit of a pain in the ass to make but it’s nice and savoury. If there is stuffing mixture left over paste it onto some crostini, serve with salad and you have an excellent starter, without the salad it will works well as a canape…jeez I used “crostini” and “canape” in the same sentence, watch out Doorley. Let’s move on before I bust out a “hors d’oeuvres”.

Ingredients (for 2):
2 chicken breasts
2 tablespoons goat’s cheese
A good handful of sun dried tomatoes
6-10 fresh basil leaves

Method
Place each chicken breast between two sheets of cling film and flatten by hammering with a rolling pin, you will see from the photos below I’ve hammered mine into the shape of Africa, that’s purely optional. Put the goats cheese, tomatoes and basil into a mixer and whizz it up. Season to taste. Spread the mixture into each of the flattened chicken breasts and roll up in the cling film into a sausage shape. Wrap in foil and leave to set in the fridge for 30mins+. Place into a pan of simmering water and poach for 10 minutes or until the chicken is completely cooked through. When done unwrap, slice and serve.

Now, lets get something clear before we move on. My photos suck. No excuses. They don’t do the food justice or make it particularily appetising but I’m not in this for the photography, I like eating, writing and talking about food, I don’t enjoy taking pictures of it. I’m not selling it so I don’t have to fancy it up, these are just regular photos taken with my N95.