There certainly wasn't any post from me this day last year as I was in labour right now (think happy thoughts...think happy thoughts :)) so today I am doing a bit of prep for my son's first birthday party tomorrow. And the slow cooker has been the star of the day so far, along with the spatula for getting ALL the melted chocolate from the side of the mixing bowl in to my rice krispie buns!
I am serving cold salad plates as the main food tomorrow so I have been getting all jobs possible out of the way today. First endeavour was to cook an unsmoked ham for slicing and on the advice of internet people, I cooked it in the slow cooker. It was a 4lb ham. I sprinkled about quarter of a cup of brown sugar on the bottom of the pot, rolled the ham in it and sprinkled a tablespoon more on top, added a splash of water and set to low for 6 hours. I am not usually a ham fan, and my other half is a major ham fan but untrusting of the slow cooker (aren't you supposed to cover the ham with water???). The result was two savage humans eating far too much of the ham that is supposed to be for the party guests. Nom nom nom it is delicious. Moist with a touch of sweetness and sliced marvelously. Once the ham was done, in went the chicken dressed up with nothing but a rub of onion powder and garlic powder. I will shred all the meat of the bone once cooked.
I made pasta salad by combining it with boiled egg, tomato, spring onion, mayo and french dressing. I was supposed to make coleslaw using my own cabbage from the garden but that can wait until tomorrow. I also have those wonderful cucumbers I was gifted which will be nice and refreshing eaten straight from the fridge. I will make a simple tomato salad by putting halved cherry tomatoes and thinly sliced red onion in a ziplock bag with torn basil leaves, some olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Shake up the bag and leave to marinade. Some people leave in the fridge but I think it will be sweeter kept at room temperature.
I made the aforementioned chocolate rice krispie buns, star of any birthday party. I entertained the idea of making the cake, for sentimental reasons more than anything, but I'm not the most talented baker so we decided on a nice fresh fruit pavlova instead. I'll make a batch of queen cakes in the morning, and I have the ingredients for green icing so we'll see how kind time is to us.
Non party related but I finally pulled my borlotti bean pods of my plants, opened the bright red pods to find lovely red and white speckled beans inside. I boiled them in water (they lose their colour unfortunately) and ate them plain. Delicious. Quite like butter beans. I almost burned them too. I think I would have cried.
Ham mmmmm, sounds fantastic, hope you had a great day!
ReplyDeleteIt was a brilliant day. The only sour part was when that morning I proudly pulled up a cabbage from the garden to make coleslaw and every layer I peeled away contained a slug and a lump of earth, like a nasty version of pass the parcel.
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