Expectations

I am reading a book at the moment, it’s not a very good one mind but it got me to thinking.

In the book this guy lost his daughter and subsequently his faith in god.  He is now holed up in a shack with ‘god’ who is presenting himself as three characters, a black woman, Jesus and an Asian woman.  I’m not even attempting to get into that just now......

In the book, god suggests that we shouldn’t have expectations as we cannot see the future.  If we don’t expect anything of someone, we can never be disappointed.

What a great way to look at things, I thought; not that my boyfriend is god, but he once said a similar thing.   You should take people for what they are, not what you think they should be or want them to be. 

That just makes so much sense to me.

If we don’t expect anything of someone, we are therefore never disappointed by them.

If you sit and think about this for a minute you will realise just how true it is. 

You will probably realise you are more than likely doing it yourself, all of the time.

If our friend isn’t in contact in a long time, we question if they are our friend because we expect better than that from someone who is a friend.  Friendship comes with rules and expectations. 

I expect my friends to contact me now and again in return for me doing the same, if they don’t I do begin to think that they don’t care.  

I expect my friends to be there for me in a crisis.

I expect my friends not to lie to me.

I expect my friends not to betray me. 

At some point I have had all of the above and I have done all of the above.  My expectations were not met and I have not met the expectations of others.

If we didn’t have these expectations couldn’t we look at people in a new light?  Could we just focus on the good bits?

It’s a wonderful concept and I truly would love to live my life that way, but surely we all have expectations of others right?

We expect certain things from our loved ones, our families, our friends and when these expectations are questioned or lacking we are immediately upset.  Even with strangers we have expectations. 

I began to think how much expectations exist in our lives and how much emphasis we put on it and on others.  I don’t see how we could be human if we didn’t expect things.  It sure is safer to expect nothing from everyone.   No one could ever let us down because there would never be any expectation that that person would do anything for you or not do anything to you.  You would just be happy with whatever happened.  

As a human, we expect our families to take care of us, not to hurt us, to shelter us and feed us and protect us; not all families do that.

Our loved ones to treat us with respect, love us unconditionally and be faithful. 

Our friends to be there for us when we need them, lend a shoulder to cry on, to laugh with, to share, we expect they will not hurt us, betray us; but they do. 

It is nothing to do with time, you can know someone your whole life and be let down by them.  If we have known them less time does it make it any easier that they fell over your expectations?

Would it be easier to deal with betrayal after just a few years or 30-40 years?

Everyone has these expectations, it is a natural human reaction to others.  I don’t know if I can control or limit these expectations. 

We expect a certain level of communication from people and if we don’t get it, it can be misconstrued as not caring. 

How can we live without expectations?  Maybe it is because we use it as a measuring instrument. If we set certain levels of expectations for people we can measure their commitment, love, we can compare them to others.     

In relationships we show emotions and affections and by doing that ourselves I think makes us feel we deserve that back.  We don’t always get what we give though, and there it is, disappointment of our expectations. 

I try to treat others the way I would want to be treated.  I try to be as kind and helpful and friendly as I can.  I am not always good at it, and I’ve made mistakes; in those mistakes I have expected nothing in return as I felt I didn’t deserve anything.  In my mistakes what I had expected was wrong; just because we hurt someone we love, does not always result in them hurting us back.  

With all relationships of all kind, don’t we need to set these expectations? Expectations can make us happy as well as sad; like if someone exceeds your expectations.  I suppose this is how we become friends with people or how we fall in love.  They become more than an expectation, things move on but then the expectations are raised.

If I didn’t expect someone to be loyal but then they were, doesn’t that create an expectation, which is then set for the next person and so on and so on.   

If something good happens to us, we want it to happen again, so any positive attributes we show as human beings sets us up for a fall because not all human beings are the same.    

Expecting nothing of someone isn’t really possible is it?  Aren’t we selfish creatures, don’t we all want something, whether it is love, loyalty, affection, care or attention?  

We have all been there in some way or another; probably lots of times, I know I have.  I think getting close to any human being comes with the consequences of expectation.

Sometimes I see things either black or white, and with expectations I feel you are always risking disappointment.  Not everyone will let you down but be damn sure it will happen to us all.    

We could also blame our past experiences.  Here is where the precedent is set. I fall into that trap frequently.   Once we get shit on enough times we are expecting it again and again.  

I expect at some point I will be let down again by someone in life or by life itself.

As always, I will pick myself up and get on with life; and if nothing else, at least I’ll be expecting it.  

In between blogs

Sorry for the lack of bloggage lately. 

Here is a little in betweeny blog.

I’m working on my next one that is not a recipe, entitled Expectations.

I am also working on some new recipes which I made up on the plane home from Bulgaria. 

We visited Kardjali last weekend and had a hectic weekend driving around the mountains in a 4x4; I think they say in Bulgarian, ‘bomba’ (courtesy of Borris), which means excellent.

On the last night we had an awesome feast in the hotel, Greek salad, really tasty kebab type things with rice and what kinda looked like fajitas with mince, but they were actually pancakes.  

So I have got some experimenting to do with mince coming up shortly with a couple of different sauces, savoury pancakes and some different types of rice.

I am also cooking cauliflower and potato soup tomorrow with halumi as I’ve a shit load of cauliflower left over and I don’t like to waste things.    

One last thing, I watched Shutter Island last night and it was AMAZZZINGGG – watch it!!  

Spaghetti with spicy bacon

200g spaghetti

6 slices of bacon

1 onion finely chopped 

1 garlic clove (pestle and mortar)

150-200g mushrooms

1-2 birdseye chillis

Jar of pasta sauce

Handful coriander

Cheese to finish (cheddar or parmesan) 

Garlic bread optional

Grated carrot optional

Serves 3-4

Prep time 10 mins

Cooking time 25 mins

I saw this recipe somewhere years ago but I’ve added some bits of my own.  It’s just a quick, easy one I have always remembered how to cook. 

Prep everything and then get the pasta going.

Fry the onions in a large pan with oil.  Add the bacon, garlic and chilli and cook for 1 or 2 mins.

Add the mushrooms and sauce and cook for around 15-20 mins.

Check how long your garlic bread takes.

Drain the pasta and gradually add to the sauce pan.

Serve with a sprinkle of coriander and grated cheese (and the garlic bread if you’re hungry). 

These aren’t the best pics, I grated some carrot on this occasion and sprinkled around the plate. 

You could try adding a bit of chopped carrot into the mix if you prefer or try celery.   I make this dish a lot, so just a few ideas to make it different.

Another quick and easy one to do similar to this is sausage pasta.  Swap the spaghetti for shells and use either Mattessons horse shoe sausage or frankfurters and I’d probably swap the mushrooms to peppers.

Enjoy

French onion soup

Ingredients

4 medium sized onions  

2 tablespoons of margarine or butter

2 tablespoons Beef broth (easiest to add 3 stock beef cubes to boiling water).

White wine (sherry will also do) or RED wine. 120ml / ½ cup

Dried / fresh thyme  1 teaspoon dried /

2 garlic cloves 

1 French Bread stick 

1 Gruyere or mozzarella cheese to top the bread (cheddar or haloumi will do)

½ teaspoon sugar

Method

*Please note I took this off the web but I can't find the link now as I copied it into Word.  

Its a really nice soup, I loved the twist of floating cheese bread - awesome :) 

So thank you, whoever you are.

___________________________________________

Start by peeling the four onions and chopping it into small bits. 

This is the most laborious part of this recipe - it takes 10 minutes or so to chop up four onions and the tears will flow!

Put the onions into a frying pan, add the butter, margarine or olive oil and turn up to a medium heat. 

Turn the onions every minute or so to ensure they are evenly cooked. Aim to cook the onions until they are a medium brown colour.

Transfer the onions from the frying pan to a large pan and add all the ingredients except the cheese and bread. 

Cook the soup on a medium heat for about 30 minutes. The aim is to get the onions so they are soft but not falling apart.

Cut up the French bread into slices and put them under the grill to very lightly toast them.  When lightly toasted, spread some cheese over each slice of bread.

Just before the soup is ready to be served, put the cheese topped bread under the grill and cook until the cheese starts to bubble.  The bread is then meant to be put on the top of the soup and served, however have it separate to dip if you prefer.

This looks like a snack-sized meal but in fact it's quite filling.

With enough toast and a crisp green side salad, it's a meal all on its own.

Veg & Potato soup with Haloumi

Ingredients

½ bag new potatoes

1 bag mixed veg

3 veg stock cubes 1300ml

3 garlic

1 large onion

Butter

Single cream

Haloumi cheese

APOLOGIES FOR THE LACK OF PICCIES

I think this is my first veggie recipe.

I am dedicating this to @redpepperjelly for the love of haloumi.

I’ve had this sitting on my laptop for ages, I think this is one I made up.   

So; fry the onions in butter. 

Add the stock, potatoes, veg and garlic.

Cook for around 30 mins or until the potatoes and veg are soft. 

Add a pouring of cream. 

Taste.

Serve with sliced haloumi.

The cheese softens and goes really well with the soup.

Try adding haloumi to onion or leek soup.        

I hate people

I have previously never thought of myself as a grumpy person; a slight angerball perhaps, but never grumpy. 

Having spent a few years with my wonderful but grumpy boyfriend, it does appear that I am indeed a complete and utter grumpy f**k and this being at all times of the month.   

I am stealing the fella’s motto ‘I hate people’ for this blog because I continually find myself saying it.

Please let it be known I don’t hate ‘all’ people you understand, this is just a general phrase we like to use for the useless, ignorant, imbeciles (yep imbeciles) that we unfortunately have to share our space with.

You will find a lot of these morons on the bus.  I get on the bus with money and the driver practically snorts at me and tuts, because the night before I didn’t have a premonition and magically realise that I may need the exact money to pay myself on the bus; what a complete b*stard I am.   Anyone would think I asked if I could pay by Visa.

Then you have these people who have obviously paid twice because they take up two seats and sit on the end so you literally have to ask them if you can sit down, like it is their bus or something.

The most annoying of all the imbeciles, is the one who thinks that they are so SPECIAL that the entire bus would want to listen to their ipod; how thoughtful of them.  Just the other day one got on right whilst I was in the middle of enjoying my book, I swear, if I knew I wouldn’t  get arrested for violence I’d have rammed it so far down her throat that a Dr would have to surgically remove it.  

There is etiquette people, etiquette.... when I am standing in a queue in the shop do not ask me if you can come in front of me because you only have two items.  The person behind you only has two items and the person behind them; shall I just wait till the shop empties before I am allowed to go home?

I can understand a little (maybe) why they asked, but that is my prerogative if I want to let you in front of me, because if you ask me, I am most likely to look at you like sh*t and say ‘NO’!!!!

If I hold the door open for you, you should say thank you.  You are not superior to me and by not saying thank you makes me think that you think you are, and subsequently, to be quite honest, makes me want to smash your face in.

I find as I am getting older and the world is producing several more nobbers than usual and the country is being run into the ground, I cannot abide people.

There are too many rules and too many things that are ‘so called’ bad for you. 

Everything needs a guideline or a process or an SOP, there are managers for the managers. 

We are no longer allowed to say how we feel because it may offend someone. 

When we all question the world and life and wonder where we all came from, my guess is that if there is a god he was clearly so disappointed in what he had created, I imagine he decided to start again. 

So watch this space for the next big bang!!  

Please remember people, you are not important, you are not better than the rest of us, the world doesn’t owe you a mother fucking thing. 

Deal with it. 

Wok cooked chicken with Greek basil leaves

Ingredients

3 boneless and skinless chicken breasts

The juice of 1 lime

Salt

Olive oil

Onion  

2 tsp grated fresh ginger

2 tsp garlic puree

½ tsp turmeric

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tbsp ground coriander

Tin chopped tomatoes

125ml warm water

3-4 tbsp Greek basil leaves

½ tsp garam masala

2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander leaves

3-4 green chillis

Nann bread

Basmati rice

This is a recipe out of my curry book but as always I have adapted it slightly. 

I’m using chicken breast instead of thighs.

Tesco online couldn’t find fenugreek leaves so I bought Greek basil leaves instead.

I have used fresh ginger instead of paste.

Coat the chicken with lime and salt and leave for 15-20 mins.

Chop your onion and peppers.  You can add or remove the seeds it doesn’t really matter as the seeds aren’t packing any heat.  This is not a hot dish so you will have to add your own spice if you want it to be hot.  Try some birdseye chillis or some ghost pepper sauce.

Fry your onion then turn the heat right down and add the garlic puree, ginger, turmeric, chilli powder and ground coriander. 

Empty half the tin of tomatoes, gradually increasing the heat and then chuck in the rest of the tin.

Now introduce the marinated chicken and cook for 4 or 5 mins; pour in the warm water and simmer for 8-10 mins.

Whilst the chicken simmers, if you wish to serve with rice, turn that on now.

Add the Greek leaves, coriander, garam masala and peppers. 

Leave this for 1 or 2 mins and stick the Naan bread in the oven.

 Enjoy

Slow cooked spicy sausages

Ingredients

1 garlic clove 

1 onion

6 or 7 sausages

150g mushrooms

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

1 or 2 (hot) birdseye chillis

Handful parsley

Gather all your ingredients to the chopping board.

Slice the garlic or crush in a pestle and mortar if you prefer.

Slice the onions in semi circles or however you want them.

Chop and prep the other ingredients.

I chop the mushrooms up really small.

Get a decent sized oven dish and put the raw sausages in.

Cover with the tomatoes, chilli, garlic, onion, parsley and mushrooms; add salt and pepper.

Spread the ingredients around equally. 

Cover with foil and cook on a low heat (150 degrees) for 2 to 3 hours. 

I keep a check on it to see whether the oven needs turning up or down to make sure they are not cooking too fast as I have made this up so it is just guess work.  The idea is to get a really slow cooked effect so if you’ve a slow cooker try it in there. 

I love sausages when they are soft and the skin isn’t toughened.  Any sausages will do I just use the thick Richmond ones.      

To accompany the sausages try cooking new potatoes then tossing them in oil and finish them off in the oven about 180 degrees for 10 mins to crisp them up. 

Today I have made home cooked roast potatoes.

I peeled 5 large Maris Pipers and cut them in half and part boiled them for about 10 mins in salted water. 

After draining the water I poured them back into the pan and gave the pan a good shake fluffing up the potatoes.  You can do this by using a fork but this way is quicker. 

Using some cheap sunflower oil put quite a few glugs into a large roasting dish and heat for a min or 2 in the oven about 190.  Add the potatoes.  They will take around 45 mins but you need to get them out every 10-15 mins to make sure they don’t stick to the bottom and using a spoon gather the oil and spoon it over the potatoes.  Do this a couple of times throughout cooking. 

If you’re hungry some nice warm bread goes well with this dish and olives to start with.

I made this for the first time for my boyfriend’s family as a Spanish themed meal, it is my own creation. 

We had olives, hot bread with oli oli which is garlic mayo, extremely popular in Spain.

To make Oli Oli I just crushed a load of garlic as small as I could and mixed with normal 

Hellmans mayo, or for extra garlicy do this with a garlic mayo.  It might sound naff but try it on some nice bread its lovely. 

I also made Spanish lemon chicken but I will post this another time.    

I insist this be served with wine.

Enjoy 

Destiny

I’ve been wondering recently what my destiny is?  

I spent a long time believing you make your own destiny and only you can make things happen; but can we really ignore the power of the universe, gods plans and good old fashioned coincidence, if there is such a thing.  If destiny was real could we avoid it and could we change it?

I do find myself saying ‘it wasn’t meant to be’, generally when I don’t get what I want.  Whether that is being with someone or wanting a certain job, that isn’t up to us, it’s a dependant variable.  

Every now and again I’ll realise there is so much to this world.  Right now as I sail down the M6 on my way to work there are many others doing the exact same thing.  More importantly at this very second, there is someone overdosing on heroin, being shot, being released from prison, being abused, losing a son, taking their own life.  There is a baby being born, a soldier fighting for his country, a doctor saving someone’s life.  People all across the world are living out their destiny.   

Even though we do not always agree with what happens to us, is there a bigger picture?  Are people put in our lives for a reason and a time limit or do we determine their departure?

Unless one event happens, then the sequence of events that follows this would not happen and is the next sequence of events our actual destiny?

I remember lying in bed crying and asking god why on earth he was doing this to me? I realised that no one was doing this to me but ME.  I was choosing to live that life, I could leave if I wanted to; in the end I did.

Sometimes things are out of our control, like when someone leaves you and you don’t want them to, or no matter how hard you try or how good you are, you still don’t get what you want. 

At the time we can’t see why this happens but is it just another road we have to go down to get to the next bit of our destiny?

What kind of people would we be if we were never thrown shit to catch now and again, hills to climb, obstacles to move; we need this stuff to make us tougher.  Can you imagine a life where everything you wanted just happened; you were never disappointed and you never had to try; you’d never feel any kind of negative emotion because your life was truly perfect.  If we didn’t experience the negative could we recognise the positive?    

I started to think further when I saw the new Kiefer Sutherland series Touch.  This is built on an idea that the universe and everyone in it is controlled by destiny.  There is an invisible string that joins each and all of us to the people we are supposed to meet along the way. 

There have been a number of occasions in my life when I have felt destiny has brought me to people but then I am the one here living this life making decisions. 

It’s a scary concept to me that I do control my own destiny because what if I make a mistake? What if I choose the wrong path and not the one I am supposed to choose, does this change my whole destiny?

If there are only two roads and you choose the wrong one, you can’t go back because the road doesn’t stay open forever, does it? 

Perhaps if in the past I’d chosen a different road I’d not be sat typing this now.

I don’t think anyone will ever really understand life and the reason why things happen.  When good people get sick, when children die before their parents, healthy men and women taken before their time without so much as a warning or time to say goodbye.  I cannot explain this and I doubt anyone can, I just call it ‘life’.  

If you believe in the scientific as opposed to the spiritual you can follow the idea that death is death and it happens through biological reason and disease.  If you believe in god you ask yourself why he would do this? One of my theories is not all destiny is good destiny.  Maybe the people that die are taken away before they unknowingly affect something of importance that would occur in their future; that inadvertently affects others.  If we have a path set out at birth, say someone out there already knows our exact time of death and reason and no matter what happens nothing will change that.  

The people that die could have been picked at random, even at birth, they may die just because not everyone can live.  Again if we never suffered loss would we appreciate life?          

I do not harbour any regrets, I don’t believe in it.  We can’t change our choices and whatever they were made us who we are today; whether that makes me more of a person or less of a person, I don’t know.

Are we able to make our own destiny? Can we follow our dreams and make life what we want?

I think maybe if we keep our dreams to an achievable level this could be ok.  Wanting to be someone we’re not, or hoping for millions of pounds or children we unfortunately can’t have – you see where I’m going; may not be attainable goals.  But, if were just looking for that perfect love or just pure happiness and a healthy enjoyable lifestyle, then I can believe in that destiny; or can I?

Life isn’t one happy road, its lots of roads and journeys with unlimited happiness and sadness some of which is out of our control.  I guess as the saying goes we just have to roll with it; cause that is what us humans do, we adapt, we adjust, we mould, we only want simple things like food, sleep, nurture, someone to love us.  It doesn’t sound that complicated when you put it like that. 

When I was younger I had this notion that when we die we would discover all the answers of the universe.  We’d know what happened to us and our loved ones when we died, we’d know about god, we’d know about ghosts, we’d know about all the mysteries of the whole world.  We might even see Elvis :)  

But then the thing is you would never get to tell anyone, because you’re dead.  But you would finally rest in peace knowing what is really out there.

It’s a nice thought isn’t it, although I’m a bit more cynical now.  Chances are when we’re gone we’re gone; not sure there is any proof of this on the contrary but it’s my little dream of death. 

What I’d like to think is, my destiny is to write so I can give up working my office job but then again I guess that is up to me to do the work.  I’d also kinda like to be turned into a vampire by Edward from Twilight but then that is just silly; but another option for giving up work ;) 

If destiny existed though, it wouldn’t matter what decisions we made would it because we’d have to live out that destiny whatever... as though destiny actually got in our heads and made our choices for us?? What do you think?      

                       

The first and last pics were taken from the National Geographic website check it out http://m.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/09/national-geographic-photo-contest-2012/100373/

Mince with spicy cream

Apologies for my lack of blogging recently, I haven't lost the love but have been trying to concentrate on finishing by book and if I'm really honest finishing several bottles of wine.

I just showed the new blog layout to my mother and she said but you're not a foul mouthed princess, I said, yeah I know I'm not a princess.  

Anyway get some cream and spice it up with one of my bitching personal versions of spicy Thai mince.  

Keep a look out for a future post of Jamie's Thai mince version 2.  

This one is juicy and saucy, version 2 is  much hotter and dryer, I like to think its like Lab Moo which I had in Koh Samet served by a very angry, stressed Canadian guy who owned the restaurant and was clearly struggling to cope.  His wife was Thai so I imagine she cooked it and it was bloody gorgeous despite waiting about an hour for it.  

May as well tell you the story now................ It was our last night on Koh Samet, I had noticed earlier in the week it was a non smoking restaurant, as it was an indoor establishment; on this night though they had one table outside where I could fully embrace my L&MS that cost me about £1.40 a pack (fills me with joy).  

We were warned of the wait but I wasn't bothered, more time for wine and fags I thought.  When he took our order he asked if I'd like any rice with it, being indecisive when it comes to food I paused a little and he bit my head off and said 'It's not hard, I'm busy here' he possibly even clicked his fingers or maybe I imagined that bit; I said yes, I'll have rice.  When dinner finally came there was no rice *Fucknuts* We asked for another beer and he did bring it over, I mean I did get the impression we were in a restaurant not a self service piss hole or a prison, it wasn't a cheap menu; he goes 'Next time fridge is over there, get it yourself'.  

Seriously dude go and learn some fucking customer service skills if you're going to run a restaurant.  Jesus Christ, we both know how stressful it can be running your own business but everybody knows you NEVER EVER take it out on YOUR customers.  He really needed some valium or magic mushrooms or dope or something.  

He did come over when it had calmed down to talk to us but I still haven't really forgiven him for that attitude.  

Right enough of my Thailand tales, depressing myself sat here, get this saved in your fav's.  

Ingredients

1lb mince

Olive oil

1 white onion 

1 ½ peppers

5-6 mushrooms

Spoonful of ginger

Sprinkle of coriander

1 garlic clove

200ml double cream

½ tin chopped tomatoes

1 tbsp massaman curry paste

2 hot chillis    

Cup of rice

I made this one up myself because I’m a tight wad and wanted to use the cream that was left in the fridge.

I got some mince and just used a load of ingredients I already had in the house.

Chop all your ingredients.

Brown off the mince with a bit of olive oil for a few minutes then drain the fat.

Put the mince back in the frying pan and add the massaman paste. 

Stir in the onions for a minute then add the mushrooms and peppers.

Add the double cream and the tomatoes.

Add the garlic and the ginger.

Turn on the rice to boil.

At this stage I tasted the mince to see how hot it was but it wasn’t hot enough for me so I gradually added the chillis until it was.

Enjoy