Mint Chutney

So a week after the BBC Radio 1Xtra's Academy workshops, I think I'm finally back down to Earth (and lectures).  I loved spending two days having the opportunity to both learn tips from those in the social media, blogging radio and other industries as well as network with other young people.  I exchanged social media details with two girls called Vanessa and Saphire, who are both trying to get their music (both originals and covers) out into the world.  The workshops also gave me plenty of inspiration for blogging and led me to my decision to change the name of my blog to Rainbow Sunshine Blogs.  The reasons behind this change are that I'm wanting to blog more than just about food (for example, on Monday, I posted about the 1Xtra event, and I did the travel series in August), and I'm wanting to post more often and limiting myself to a Friday just won't cut it anymore because so much is always happening.  Fridays will always be about food though.

This evening, I'm heading to the Bradford Playhouse for the 24 hour show.  A 24 hour show is a musical where before the night before the show, only the production team know what the musical will be.  Participants arrive on the Friday night with sleeping bags, food, etc. (but no caffeine is allowed) for 24 hours, and are told what musical they will be performing on the Saturday night.  During the 24 hours, all auditions, rehearsals and set-designing and building take place.  Last year, we did The Rocky Horror Show, which was brilliant.

For this week, I'm going to share another of the recipes from the card I picked up at the UBU Green Thursdays stall 2 weeks ago, and this one if for mint chutney.  The recipe originally called for natural yoghurt, but as usual, you can use dairy-free yoghurt to make the recipe vegan-friendly!

Ingredients

3 tablespoons mint leaves, about 10g
1 teaspoon caster sugar
150g tub of low-fat dairy-free natural yoghurt
a squeeze of lime or lemon

Instructions

1. Blend the mint leaves, sugar and yoghurt with some freshly-ground black pepper until well-blended.
2. Add the lime or lemon juice before serving.

Double Chocolate Cookies

This is rather late (it's now Sunday, not Friday), but I've had a more busy and interesting week than usual, and I'm now trying to catch up with everything before my next placement talk (where CVs and interviews will be discussed) on Tuesday morning.

This week, I've been attending some of the films shown at the National Media Museum's Media and Conflict Interchange as part of my Media Ethics, Compliance and Sustainability module.  The three films I saw, The Wind Rises (a Studio Ghibli film), Leave to Remain (a drama about young asylum seekers applying to stay in England), and Still The Enemy Within (a documentary about the miners' strike of 1984-85), were all excellent, and I'm looking forward to probably watching them again as I write my essay on them for my coursework.  I would definitely recommend these films even if you don't have to study them.

Also, at the end of last week, I took part in a 24 hour show performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  This means that auditions, all rehearsals, costumes and set-building were completed within 24 hours.  I only had 4 hours sleep (between 2am and 6am), and most of the rest of the time, we were rehearsing different songs (including the Time Warp) and running through lines (I was one of the four narrators), and most mealtimes were much later than I'd normally aim to have them.  In any case, it was so much fun with all my friends.  I'd have expected to have felt a lot more tired (I did just before bedtime though), but I think I'd had much more energy than usual because I'd taken a LOT of fruit, chocolate and other goodies with me.  One of those goodies was a packet of double chocolate cookies grabbed from Morrisons at the last minute.  I'd had to take a couple of beauties with me to one of the rehearsals due to the rest of my food being in a different part of the theatre.  The following recipe is a double chocolate cookie recipe from Susie Theodorou's Coffee & Bites.

Ingredients (to make 15 cookies)

225g (8oz/1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
225g (8oz/1 1/4 cups) soft light brown sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
275g (10oz/2 1/2 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder (i.e. Bournville)
3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
175g (6oz/1 1/4 cups) plain (bittersweet) chocolate (i.e. Bournville), roughly chopped
butter for greasing

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, 160-170 degrees Celsius fan-assisted, 350 degrees Fahrenheit, or gas mark 4.
2. Cream together the butter and the sugar until smooth and fluffy in texture and light in colour - it will be faster using either a food processor or an electric mixer.  Then, gradually beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
3. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) into a large bowl, then fold into the cookie mixture.
4. Fold in the chocolate pieces, using a plastic spatula to scrape well along the sides of the bowl to ensure that all of the ingredients are mixed together.  Chill the mixture for 20 minutes.
5. Grease 2-3 large baking sheets with butter.  You will have to bake in batches as the cookies expand a lot - 3 cookies per baking sheet.  Roll the cookie mixture into 15 golf-ball-size balls and place well apart on the baking sheets.  Press them down gently with the back of a greased spoon.
6. Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes until the edges are firm, but the centres are still just soft when gently pressed.
7. Cool for a minute or two before transferring to a wire rack.  Serve warm or cold.