A hard day's night

Why is it that Ikea furniture absolutely needs a man's strong hand? On friday night we went to Ikea with the bright idea of buying my son Andre a bunkbed. I naturally assumed I could fix it all by myself considering I had built two bedside tables this summer and they had only taken me four hours! So, my mom and I set to work. It took us around one hour to get all bothered and angry at each other, another hour to push part of the frame together which absolutely refused to stick and another hour to realize something was wrong, very, very wrong...We had stuck the wrong parts together with superhuman strength and succeeded, in order to take it apart, by breaking those little annoying wooden pieces. At this point, my son had given up on us forever and I ended up calling my boyfriend Dairy trying to keep my voice calm and composed (which of course it was not - it was whiny bordering on hysterical) as I begged him to come help us useless weak pathetic and dusty females.

To cut a very long story short, he came and we had to undo the whole thing and after many other incidents involving bent nails we couldn't remove and that had to be removed, me hyperventilating, my threatening to throw the whole thing out right this moment as it was clearly the end of the world for me, my dog max jumping on us for attention, Dairy nearing leaving from exhaustion, we finished it!

Well, all this to tell you that no, I won't be giving you the recipe for swedish meatballs but rather a recipe for a chocolate fudge cake. This, my dear patient readers (if any at this point), was the reward for our backbreaking work. As this cake is cooked in a pan of water, it has a soft, compact and extremely moist interior and a brownie-like appearance and texture on top. I got the recipe for this cake from my mom who, in turn, got it off some Greek television cooking programme... Sorry, not very original, but believe me, this is the chocolate cake that will disappear at the speed of light. I didn't even have time to take a picture of it in its glorious entirety.

Dewy Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

250 grams margarine

1 cup sugar

300 grams black chocolate (70%) preferably chocolat noir cremant de cailler

5 eggs (yolks and whites separated)

1/2 cup flour

Zest of 1 orange (optional)

Heat up oven to 180 degrees celsius, lightly butter and flour a medium sized round baking tin. Mix the margarine with the sugar until the mixture is creamy and white. Melt the chocolate in a small bowl which you have placed over a saucepan of boiling water making sure that it doesn't actually touch the water. Add to the previous mixture. Incorporate the eggs yolks, flour and the eggs whites which you have beaten with a pinch of salt. You may also add the zest of one orange to give it a little more flavour even though, rest assured, the chocolate in this cake is so good it doesn't need anything else.

Place the baking tin within another larger one which you have half-filled with water keeping in mind that the water level will rise (when you put in the second pan with the mixture) and risk flooding the cake if you put too much. Bake for 45min, then switch off oven and leave for another 15min. After the 15min, place cake on a cooling rack and when it has cooled considerably, lightly dust it with icing sugar. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

In case you are wondering why the Beatles are running in the picture above, it's because they caught a whiff of my cake and were running to find it in desperation. It's true, I swear...

Underneath the Mango Tree

Today Max and I went running in the rain on the seafront. Who would have guessed three years ago that this would be my life, that I would be privileged enough to be able to have the time to do things I've always wanted to do. Don't get me wrong though, living in Geneva did have its positive points and one of those was eating pumpkin soup with Andre and Sugi, his Mongolian nanny and best friend of mine, at lunch time when I would rush home for an hour of sheer happiness and the occasional poetry reading by yours truly (needless to say that this provoked unprecedented squeals of laughter) because I wanted Andre to learn how to appreciate poetry.

Well, unfortunately, despite my efforts, we always ended up singing Underneath the Mango Tree from some James Bond movie with Sugi as chorus and the cat gone all wild hanging by his nails on the walls. With a spring in my step, I would walk back to work in the rain, snow or north wind that blows all winter in Geneva and takes out your soul, as a Greek saying goes...

This recipe is my adaptation of the typical French/Swiss one which only has carrots and is rather too sweet for my taste. I would also sometimes make it for my sister when she was pregnant and she would cross town in rush hour traffic just to savour it with warm bread and a slice of swiss gruyere cheese. With the wind howling outside and rattling the window panes, this soup is the perfect companion, velvety and smooth, sweet and savoury. Perfect with a dollop of cream, gruyere, warm bread on the side...

Musical Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

1 small butternut pumpkin

3 small onions

3 tomatoes

3 small potatoes

3 carrots

1 small handful of parsley

2 cubes of chicken stock

salt, pepper

hot spice (optional)

Cut the pumpkin in cubes, roughly slice the potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and persil. Set aside. In a big pot (a steam cooker if you have one) lightly fry the onions in 5 tbsps of olive oil. Add the pumpkin and carrots, continue frying for a few minutes until the pumpkin dissolves somewhat. Add the potatoes, tomatoes and parsley. Heat a kettle with water and pour over the vegetables until covered and add the chicken stock. Season accordingly. Cook over medium-high heat for at least an hour (less if using a pressure cooker) and with a small hand-held mixer, puree it. Let it simmer for a few more minutes.

Underneath the Mango Tree lyrics (John Barry and Monty Norman)

Underneath the mango tree

Me honey and me can watch for the moon

Underneath the mango tree

Me honey and me make boolooloop soon

Underneath the moonlit sky

Me honey and I can sit hand in hand

Underneath the moonlit sky

Me honey and I can make fairyland

Mango, banana and tangerine

Sugar and ackee and cocoa bean

When we get marry we make them grow

And nine little chil' in a row

Underneath the mango tree

Me honey and me can watch for the moon

Underneath the mango tree

Me honey and me we plan marry soon

Mango, banana and tangerine

Sugar and ackee and cocoa bean

When we get marry we make them grow

And nine little chil' in a row

Underneath the mango tree

Me honey and me can watch for the moon

Underneath the mango tree

Me honey and me we plan marry soon

Underneath the mango tree

Underneath the mango tree

Underneath the mango tree

Underneath the mango tree

A little pinch of me...

My dear readers, let me start by humbly introducing myself. I love cooking, reading, chatting and dancing - preferably all at the same time - if I am not making something complicated that requires transforming pints into grams, in which case, I suddenly get very very edgy and nervous (you must understand that I was possibly the worst maths student in the entire world). Anyway, I am always seeking new ideas, improving my improvements, and generally making everyone around me slightly overweight (that's where the dancing comes in handy). I am now taking this a step further. I need you, sweet readers, to be my guinea pigs!!! Please rest assured though that all my recipes have been approved by others and nutty perfectionist that I am, I would love to have your feedback.