Last Thursday I had the pleasure of doing the catering for the third networking event held at Ashville Lodge, the home of The Wirral Society for The Blind & Partially-Sighted, overlooking Birkenhead Park.
The guest speaker was Geoffrey Prince - dubbed GuruGeoffrey by Ida Moos - who is always fascinating to listen to, whether yarning about his time on the New Brighton lifeboat, turning his house in New Brighton into the Hollins Hey Hotel, scuba-diving in exotic climes or his boat-building business in Birkenhead. The glass is always half-full, never half-empty. As I type, he has just posted on Facebook another of his truisms: "Successful people are the ones who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others throw at them."
Positive thinking is essential.
I try to balance familiar food with some new experiences: my chicken tikka kofte are always a hit, whilst the sausage and baked bean fritters were utterly new - but very well received, nonetheless.
Tikka Kofte ready to fry
Sausage & Baked Bean Fritters
I've been trying to buy dried haricot beans for about a month but neither Asda nor Tesco are stocking them so I've switched to pinto beans for my home-made baked beans. This recipe uses sausagemeat, minced onions, mashed cooked beans, seasoned with S+P, chives, Worcester sauce, tomato ketchup and puree, bound with a mixture of flour, breadcrumbs and beaten egg. I form them into little cakes, deep-fry to seal and then bake in a medium oven for about 15 - 20 minutes.
The other success of the evening for me was the "Chiantishire Bean" Crostini - a recent adaptation of my classic hummus recipe: 13th March 2011. My only disappointment was that nobody else seemed to be as addicted as I am to my new vegetarian dish, Spicy Mexican Refried Bean Dumplings.
Ah well!
