Update

Hey y'all! What be hippedy-happenin'?
If I seem a little out of it, it's because I've been celebrating the shit out of my birthday this weekend! Oh yeah, I'm a big girl now.
And look at some of the goodies I got,
yeah, you know what I'm talking about. And not to mention the bitchin' camera the boyfriend got me as well!!!!
See you l8r (see how I'm trying to hold on to the remnants of my youth/ immaturity?)

Koori Fish

Hands up everyone who's been singing 'ding dong, the witch is dead', you can all go jump in a lake!

I haven't really been up to much except totally overdosing on 'Masterchef: The Professionals', and once you've sat around for a few hours straight catching up on all the episodes you've missed, everything begins to look so easy. Words like 'emulsion', 'albumen' and 'mirepoix' begin to sound like legitimate nouns, meaning I no longer need to Google them while scratching my head, drooling, and going 'duuuuuh?'. And I am inspired to have a go at some aspik ('Aspik anyone?' Sounds dirty, probably won't make it on to my fantasy dinner party menu...), fennel pollen, smoked butter, and all the other crap nobody has ever heard of. One day *sigh*

And then I wake up, and realise that I still have to have something to eat, today.
We have a whole side of salmon in the fridge, and although it's been decimated by my brother's sushi attempts, there is still enough for a couple of meals.
I was determined to not resort to Sophie Grigson's 'Fish' book again. I don't know why I hate her, I just do. Not enough to throw out the book, because I have to admit to myself, it's pretty useful, but enough to feel a fantastic sense of one-upmanship when I think I've 'outwitted' her somehow. It's my birthday in a couple of days, by the way, so maybe I will finally grow out of having arguments in my head with imaginary friends...

So, this is a half victory really. The recipe I found calls for generic sounding 'fish steaks', I presented this as evidence to the boyfriend that I need a few more books, specifically seafood, and I swear to God, I think he said something like "Use the ones you have, or else I'll take them away and then you won't have ANY!". After I was done ROFLing I started cooking.
I used whole cumin and coriander seeds, smashed up in the pestle and mortar a bit, instead of ground. As I was 'grinding' them I wondered if it was too late to ask for a new coffee grinder for my birthday. Sad and pathetic? Yes (especially since they're so cheap, I could pick on up from Argos on my way from work tomorrow) I immediately remembered one Christmas when my mother expectantly tore the paper off a large box and found it full of spatulas and a frying pan. She shot us the dirtiest looks while we were opening our hoverboards or Tamagotchis or whatever it is the young people like.
Anyway, remember the apocalyptic scene I was afraid of when I was deep frying the Coxinhas Encantadas? I said that every time I deep fry something I expect to be burned or mutilated in some freak accident. Well, despite the precautions a paranoid imagination affords you, I was entirely unprepared for what happened next. After cooking the powdered spices for a few minutes I started throwing the rest of the ingredients in and the fucking chilli exploded! My face and arms were covered with beads of um... you know, very hot oil - hardcore!
Of course, in retrospect I realised that most people would prick the pepper to let steam escape, but I guess the authors didn't feel like mentioning that in the recipe, bunch of sadists. Girls are the worst.
Anyway, apart from that little bit of excitement, the rest of the preparation went smoothly.
Result: Really good. I never really make Indian curries, I'm much more comfortable in the Thai subset, so this might very well go into my repertoir. The salmon kept all of it's fishy taste and was still moist and juicy, but after a bite or two you could taste the warmth of the chilli. Keeping it whole releases a very mild flavour (that I'm still not sure was worth the maiming I got!).
Try it if you dare.

Tiramisu with Prunes and Lime Curd

So I spend a lot of time reading other people's food blogs (but definitely never at work, Annie!), and a real shame is that I've set myself such strict parameters as to where I get the recipes for my own blog from, that I don't necessarily give myself the opportunity to try all the yummy looking things others have come up with. So when I saw this book, "There's a Mouse in the Soup... Recipes and Stories from Culinary Blogs" I wanted it BAD.

Reader, I fell off the wagon. The goddamn airplane has crashed into the mountain and I ended up buying 5 books in total. Luckily for me (Oh my God, Schadenfreude, I going to hell), the bookshop was going out of business, so they were practically giving everything away.

I got my Karmic ass kick later in the afternoon. Remember all the trouble I had finding Orange Blossom Water for my last dessert? Well when I went shopping for ingredients I discovered that the gigantic Sainsbury's near the boyfriend's house runneth over with the stuff, in much larger bottles for an eighth of the price I paid. Humbug.

Anyway, this recipe is from a French blog: http://lacuillerenbois.canalblog.com. It's still up, but obviously all in French.

I don't know why I chose this dish. I don't like prunes, I don't know anyone who likes prunes, and I don't want to know anyone who likes prunes! The boyfriend and his mum claim to enjoy them but they're both lying.

I didn't have enough limes, so used a couple of tangerines as well. Also, in view of the incredible amount of sugar in this recipe I substituted the sugar cane syrup for honey so that, you know, once all my teeth fall out from eating the first three layers, the honey soaked into the pancakes at the bottom will soothe and alleviate my bloody gums. God, what an imagination I have, I always prepare myself mentally for the worst case scenario. For example, the top layer has two raw eggs in it, will we all get salmonella? What if we don't eat it fast enough, how long will it keep in the fridge? Like if I go out for dinner with some girls from work tomorrow or something, and then get home really late, and I'm not really hungry anymore, and then the next day someone comes over and I tell them to help themselves to whatever in the fridge and they accidentally eat some and get REALLY SICK! Do I want to be responsible for something like that?

I wanted to make half the amount, in case it's really disgusting, but ended up doing the quantity given in the recipe due to the boyfriend's twisted, perverted supplications.
Result: This 'tiramisu' is missing the two things I most enjoy, coffee and alcohol, so I assumed it would turn out like some bastardized trifle. How wrong I was. You can really taste the tea that the prunes are soaked and cooked in, and the horrible strong taste that I dislike so much in the prunes themselves melts into something that almost resembles damson gin. Me and the boyfriend were standing over the pan, waiting for it to cool, and sneaking spoonfuls of the mixture like a couple of dorks. So, you know, I've been cured of my prune antithesis. The recipe suggests adding sugar to the prunes to taste, but it wasn't necessary.
The problem came when everything is put together, it's too fricking sweet. The top layer is the worst, all you can taste is raw egg and sugar. You know Mascapone on it's own would have been fine, it's almost as though the original recipe has been changed for the sake of change.
So that's it, my foray into the world of desserts is over. I'm still convinced that I'm not missing much. Next time - meat!

Muhallabia

So last time we had Crapaud, and today it's Muhallabia. Stop giggling in the back there children! When you can compose yourselves, we'll carry on...

Ok, so like I've mentioned before I don't really like dessert, and I don't drink cow's milk, um... and I'm not that jazzed about nuts. And sugar is bad for you. So will this big gelatinous boob convince me to change my ways?

Initially all signs point to no. What the hell is Orange Blossom Water? In the back of the book there is a note to say that it can be found in major supermarkets, Middle Eastern and Turkish shops blah blah blah, yeah, maybe in Lebanon. I must have gone to five different stores and it was nowhere to be found, so I kind of put this dish on the back burner, it wasn't meant to be, I made my peace with the infuriating situation. Then a couple of days ago I finally saw a bottle in Planet Organic. They charged me a terrifying, tear-inducing amount for it, but if it's so expensive, it must really be worth it, right?

Maybe, lets see.

The smell of warm milk is really comforting and takes me back to my childhood when I was given some to drink at bedtime if I couldn't sleep. Years later I decided that milk is probably poisonous because of the lactose and stopped drinking it, but now I think it's time to stop the tantrum and get with the program!

I had a little swig of the Orange Blossom Water to see what all the fuss is about, there is almost no taste except maybe a slight bitterness, great, worth the effort.

Result: The bastard didn't set! I left it in the fridge for 24 hours and still didn't dare to try and turn it out. I followed the recipe to the letter, but the problem must be that '1 leaf of gelatine' is pretty vague.

To be fair, I've seen other recipes for this online that call for arrowroot as a thickener and it's served in little bowls and not rolling around on a plate, so I'm not too depressed about what is ultimately my failure!

The taste - I think the best description is that it smells and tastes like perfume. I once heard a story that one time my grandad was so hard up for booze that he drank a bottle of my grandmother's perfume, I don't know if that's true, but after trying this pudding it seems a lot more plausible. The smell of orange blossom and rose is almost overpowering, but if you manage to ignore it, the taste is quite pleasant. I was trying to put my finger on what it could be compared to, and it's just like custard. If it was warm and you had a thing against eggs, this could be your bag, baby. However, it must be said, that my brother, who's been known to have 4 spoons of sugar in his coffee, found this too sweet. Proceed with caution.

Crapaud

I disobeyed the master's wishes, and bought a new book.
This little treasure was £2.50 in the Red Cross bookshop, and if I wasn't so tired I would come up with a clever joke about how red and cross it made the boyfriend, but you can just use your imagination.
The cover is a bit confusing to me, but maybe that's just because I've never been to the Caribbean. I mean, all you lucky dogs who summer there must instantly think 'Jamaica!' when you see a bunch of parsley. Or 'Barbados!' when a half peeled orange rolls toward you. Of all the cookbooks I buy, my favorite ones tend to be the specific county cuisines. I know I'll probably never go to these places, so at least I can try to recreate the flavour at home... with a nice bunch of parsley.
In all seriousness, I bought this book because there is a recipe for frogs legs in it. I still had a half a kilo in the freezer from my previous effort, and was tentatively on the lookout for something different. They could have given it a better name than Crapaud though.
I looked everywhere for ground cloves, but obviously there's no such thing. Our coffee grinder went gently into that good night a while ago and I haven't gotten around to replacing it, so crappy pestle and mortar take the stage. Reminding myself how much I hate cloves doen't make the process in any way satisfying, and when that's followed by grating the onion I feel really hard done by.
I let the concoction sit and think about what it's done in the corner for an hour, and then flour and fry. Unlike chicken, or whatever, frog never quite aquires that golden hue. If anything, it just goes paler the longer if fries. Very attractive.
Result: Quite nice. A little like wings, but more chewy, with a pretty mild taste. It would have benifited from a bit more salt, maybe, and you can't really taste the cloves (yes!). The main flavour is onion, and lime juice once you add some. I fried up some little lumps of onion from the marinade and it all goes together and everything. Yeah, I would give it a medium score.
So, I'm glad I tried it and would have it again, but lets not get carried away by the excitement of the thing, yeah? You're eating frogs

Chargrilled Peppers with Pomegranite

I read an interview in the Guardian with Marcus Wareing, there are 13 recipes for popcorn in his new book (wow, race you to Borders to buy it!) and his reasoning is that nobody uses the whole cookbook, people just pick out a couple of recipes 'and the rest is just fluff!'. Wow, well why don't you just write the two recipes and then get back in the kitchen and bake me a pie, pretty boy!
Anyway, the point is, that of course everybody does that, I do. But if there is one book that I want to make everything out of, it's Nigella's Christmas. Every time I even pick it up, I get hungry. Thumbs up to her stylist, because I guess I'm not sure if it's her food or the plates she's eating it off of that I really like. Her photographer is really good too. Bastards.
I can't get to a scanner right now, but lets just say that the photograph of this dish in the book, makes my final photo look like it's of a pile of puke. So, hungry?
So anyway, todays dinner is total pepper overkill. I bought a jar of chargrilled peppers for the trout and Nigella suggests using them instead of roasting your own, if you like feel like it, yeah? But the ones I got are really sour and salty, the roasted ones are pretty sweet in comparison, but who cares, it's a salad, lets have another drink. Quick, wink at someone! And now put on a little lipgloss, yummy!
Result: OK, the only criticism I have of the recipe, is that I found that there is quite a big difference between the seeds on 2 pomegranites and 150g of seeds. I ended up having twice the amount that I needed.
Apart from that - So good! The feta was optional, but I layed it on, baby. We were half way through dinner when I noticed the jar of capers still sitting on the kitchen counter. Crap, I'd forgotten all about them. I fished one out and put it on my plate with the salad, mushed it all around, forked it and put it in my mouth. Bleurgh, disgusting. The peppers and pomegranite are so sweet, it's almost a dessert, the little lumps of feta are really mild and 'it really ties the room together', the capers are too salty. Use your common sense, unlike me. I have to type out the recipe today, and somehow Nigella manages to stratch out the formula for this salad for 2 freaking pages!(I'm going to edit out her ramblings) At least she's not giving 13 recipes for it...

Chargrilled Peppers with Pomegranite
6 Peppers (ideally a mix of red, orange and yellow, but never, ever, ever green; all red is fine though)
Seeds from 2 pomegranites, or 150g of pomeranite seeds from a packet
30ml pomegranite juice
2 teaspoons of lemon or lime juice
60ml extra virgin olive oil
15ml garlic oil
1/2 teaspoon Maldon salt or 1/4 teaspoon table salt
3 tablespoons of drained capers

Preheat the oven to 250C
Cut the peppers in half, remove the stalk and seeds, and sit them cut-side down on an oven tray or a couple of trays. Roast in the hot oven until they blister; about 15 mintes should do it.
Take out of the oven, and quickly tip the blackened peppers into a big bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with clingfilm and leave the peppers to cool enough to handle.
Use your hands to peel off strips of charred skin (don't worry if some is left on) and as you go, put torn strips of peppers into a serving dish.
When you've done all of them, add most of the pomegranite seeds to the pepper and toss well.
Whisk together the pomegranite and lime juices, the olive oil, garlic oil, and salt. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss gently but well.
Add capers (feta cheese!)

Truchas con Jamon y Pimentos

OK, this is another meal that I'm going to split into several posts. I've been reading other people's food blogs and by comparison, I don't really have very nice pictures, and I also don't describe the process in enough detail. But I do like to ramble on with lots of irrelevant background material.
So to kick off, I am cooking from 1080 Recipes by Simone and Ines Ortega. I bought this thing (and I have to call it a thing, not a book bacause have you seen the size of this thing!?) because I read a lukewarm review of it's English translation in Slate magazine ages ago. They were lamenting the use of canned peas and other convenient ingredients in the recipes and mentioned Ferran Adria at last twice as an example of the kind of Spanish food you should really be trying to make. Very annoying, bunch of fetishists.
Anyway, here's my mise en place
That stuff in the foreground, taking up half of the picture is Serrano ham, just in case you had any doubts. Did I ever mention that my boyfriend is Spanish? Well he went shopping with mummy a couple of days ago (that's what they do in Spain, apparently, instead of giving their mum the finger and running off to drink cider in the park with their mates), bought some Serrano ham, came over and put it in my fridge without telling me about it. So when I wanted to make this recipe for dinner and saw the package in the fridge I asked him whether it was Serrano or Parma. Oh My God! How dare I ask such a thing! How dare I suggest that he would bring the inferior meat into my house, or any house! What did I take him for, some kind of lunatic? Was I aware of the difference between Italy and Spain?!
I stood there for a few minutes hoping he would shut up, but then he noticed that our olive oil is Greek and it all started again from the beginning. Spain has the ideal climate for growing olives, and the types of trees are themselves better than any of that crap they have over there. Why did I think they all lived such long healthy lives? Blah blah blah, I stopped listening to some of it, and then he left to have dinner with some friends. Just as well because I only had 4 trout.

I scaled them under the tap, but left the heads on. Some people think it's a bit creepy to have them googling you, but I always leave them on because if you squeeze the cheeks a bit you can make the mouth move and sing little songs, or ask questions, like 'why did you kill me?' - it's really funny. And also it makes the sauce a lot more juicy.
This recipe is very simple, maybe that's the reason I never describe the process, because everything is clear as day from the recipe below and you'd have to be duuuuuuuuuuumb to mess it up.
Result: Wow, that picture is really appetizing, isn't it? Why does all of my food end up being gray? I was worried that it would be a bit salty from all that Serrano and the pickled peppers, but it was just perfect. One fish per person is a lot, but no matter how full I got I just had to keep eating, it was that good. The boyfiend doesn't like freshwater fish because they tend to have an earthy, almost dirty taste, but this was just amazing. It tasted almost meaty, like a juicy piece of veal or something. Again again again!
(I can't get to the scanner, so I'll have to type the recipe up. Grrrr)

Trout with ham and peppers
4 Trout, cleaned
300g canned red peppers, drained and cut into strips
1 Chilli, seeded and cut into pieces
4 thin slices of Serrano ham
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar or lemon juice
salt

Preheat the oven to 200C. Season the trout with salt and pepper. Divide the red peppers and chilli among the slices of ham. Roll up each slice of ham and put one inside the cavity of each fish. Put the trout into a roasting tin in a single layer. Pour the oil over them and sprinkle with garlic. Season with salt and bake for about 12 minutes, until the flesh flakes easily. Transfer the trout to a warm serving dish. Add the vinegar or lemon juice to the roasting tin and bring the mixture to the boil, then pour it over the trout and serve immediately.

Update

I haven't cooked anything in he last couple of days because I've been ill. A new mystery disease that has baffled medical professionals...
They say a cluttered room is a sign of a cluttered mind. There's actually nothing cute and charming about throwing your things around, claiming that you have a 'system' for finding various items, and you know, calling other people messy all the time.
Anyway, the one thing I've done this week is turned my cookbook collection from this manky pile on my bedroom floor,
To this neat stack on a newly cleared shelf,
Wow! Amazing, right? I mean, I'm speechless... maybe I am sick in the head...

Quiche Lorraine

OK, this isn't technically a 'book', I borrowed this pie dish from the boyfriend's mum for my sugar-free extravaganza and I might as well get as much use out of it as I can. There is a recipe for a quiche on it which I think is really cute. Imagine you started making this up and rolled out the pastry right over the recipe and had to guess the rest! Yeah, that totally didn't happen to me.
According to Wikipedia, once you put onions in, it stops being a Quiche Lorraine and starts being Alsacienne, I would have prefered a few more vegetables in it, but perhaps in that case, if I served it to a Frenchman he would die of shock.
I was thinking today about how much money I'm spending to try and keep this blog interesting. I mean, I could make a quiche every week, or mashed potato, or do a review of Delia's egg boiling technique. But really, I just want to learn how to cook. I want to know what my favorite dish is, not just eat anything I'm given, I spend ages trying to pick things off of restaurant menus because everything looks nice and I don't want to pick the like second best thing, or something.
As I'm typing this, the boyfriend is trying to convince me to Photoshop my photographs, they're a bit dull and he claims that he can really 'sparkle them up' (his words), I'm really getting an education, huh!
Anyway, quiche, so simple to make, why haven't I made one before? But are you really not meant to blind bake the pastry first? I ended up using only two of the tomatoes instead of three, maybe mine weren't medium enough.

Result: OK, that picture makes it look a lot more burnt than it was, it's only a little brown around the edges. Maybe I do need to do some of that sparkling it up. The dough was undercooked at the bottom. Tasted soggy, salty and stupid. I have half a pack of dough left, though, so might make it again with a touch more flava. Peace out, blud


200g shortcrust pastry
28g butter
4 rashers of bacon, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
142g cheddar, grated
2 large eggs
142ml milk
black pepper
3 tomatoes

Roll out pastry and use to line the flan dish. Trim away excess pastry and prick the base with a fork.
Prepare filling by melting butter in a frying pan and frying the onion until softened. Grill bacon until cooked and drain well. Place the cooked bacon and onion evenly in the base of the pastry case, and cover with the grated cheese. Beat the eggs and add to the milk, season with freshly ground black pepper, and pour over the filling. Decorate with sliced tomatoes.
Bake for 30 minutes at 200c, then reduce heat to 180c for a further 10 minutes until just set and golden.
Serve hot ot cold with jacket potatoes and green salad

Pollo en Pepitoria

This book is called Tapas, but it's full of recipes that I wouldn't expect to be a tapa, so I'm really getting an education here. The authors are London restaurateurs who are childhood friends from Spain. I've never heard of their place, but apparently it's always full of celebrities - la di da.
They don't specify which beer to use so my decision was influenced by what was on sale at Asda, so Kronenberg. I'm not really particularly descerning in regard to beer, I don't want to listen to a bunch of junk about the brewing method. Nobody really 'likes' the taste of beer, you drink it to get gradually drunk and be sociable - as opposed to gin, which you drink on your own to drown your misery. Mother's ruin!
Anyway, personal asides aside, you start preparing this dish by coating the bottom of the pan with an inch of oil. Someone once told me that they find Spanish food too greasy, and it is, it really really is. Well, to be honest, I've made four different things today and I'm kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of florid witticism to bark at nobody in particular.
So you fry a bit of this, and a bit of that, but one at a time in a creepy OCD way, of course, then you put all the chicken back in and pour in enough lager to cover. The recipe calls for 2 cans but I had to use a little more, much to the dismay of the vultures cirling around looking to pick up the scraps leftover from the sixpack. Animals... birds?

Result: Maybe it's my body trying to tell me to stay in my retarded childish frame of mind, but this is too beery, I don't like it. This is really a dish for grown-ups, it's like the punishment you have to endure to get to the dessert. There is a depth of flavour beyond the bitterness, but it tastes a lot better when you mix it with the other things on your plate. Dad suggeted that I use a sweeter beer next time, what's the story with all these tips? And in case anybody was about to volunteer, I don't want to know anything about the offside rule either. It's not that it was bad, it just tasted bad.
But look what we had for afters!

Espinacas con Garbanzos y Cebollas

I got this book for Christmas from the boyfriend's brother and his girlfriend. Every time they've given me a present it's been really thoughful and nice. I always get them shit gifts in comparison, but obviously that's just because my life is an open book, I'm easy to buy for, and I have such generosity of spirit! I will be thinking about how great I am later on as well as I eat the cookies they bought in a monastery in Seville and brought back from Spain for me.
I didn't read the recipe properly so didn't realise I had to roast the 12 cherry tomatoes for an hour. WTF? This dish is a crazy elaborate for something made out of 4 ingredients. I fried them in a separate pan until they softened. And I used about at 12th of the amount of oil specified because olive oil doesn't make me all that jazzed.
Result:My dad and his wife don't really eat spinach because of it's anticoagulant properties and they have 'arthritis', sorry - arthritis. I tried to find fennel to use instead of spinach, but it may be out of season. Or maybe I'm making that up, anyway, they tried it. It tasted fresh, like fresh spinach and tomatoes, you know, healthy. There is an easy way to make this simple dish, the recipe for the hard way is below

Leek, Mushroom and Lemon Risotto

So I've been at the boyfriend's most of last week, and I returned home to find a gigantic pile of mushrooms stinking up the kitchen. It's the season, you know, so dad has been dragging his wife around a forest to forage for mushrooms. I've seen him in action in the past, when I was still young enough to be told what to do, he would wake us all up at some crazy time on a Saturday morning (around 10) with a bucket in hand and drive us out to the countryside (if we were awake enough we'd be throwing pebbles out of the car window to find our way home by). Anyway, needless to say, if he tried it now he'd be wearing that bucket as a hat, so I'm really happy he's found someone else to tramp around with.
So, to use up some of the stuff he found I am making a risotto. I should say, that I've had really funny guts a couple of days ago, but I heard that this particular type of mushroom - birch boltes are really good for stomach upsets.
I've had these pickled before and they're really meaty and tasty and yummy. Dad also made mushroom stock which I'm using instead of vegetable stock (it's the two pints of tar looking stuff in the background). Other substitutions are the rice and cheese. The fancy cloth bag of rice is actually paella rice, my Secret Santa at work gave it to me last Christmas (what a comedian) and I haven't got around to using it yet, um... because I don't have a paella dish and don't see one in my immediate future. And I didn't get any Parmesan, so there is a shameful lump of cheddar hiding behind the bottle of olive oil.
The book I'm using has been at the back of the cupboard for a while and I've never even opened it! That's about as exciting as it gets, because risotto making is boring. People try and tell you that there is a particular procedure, and you have to get it absolutely right, but they're lying. Just put it in the pan, add liquid, stir, make sure it doesn't burn, and Robert is your mother's brother.
Result: Black. Black like your heart. The picture is a bit steamy so you can't see just how black it is. We had this as one of three dishes for dinner, and this was the nicest one. The lemon zest and juice cuts through the earthy taste of the mushrooms, but is not too strong. But lets not get over excited, risotto is just risotto.

Banana Cow and Banana Daiquiri

I have a friend who doesn't like bananas (hold on, there's more to this story). We were in a Thai restaurant once, and being the delicate flower of a girl that I am, I tried to get him to share a banana fritter dessert with me. I was then that he made his revelation, accompanied by the sad tale that when he was little his sister pushed a banana up his nose, and he couldn't stand them ever since. So when I heard this I started laughing at him, obviously, and I think he got a bit annoyed (especially when I ordered the dessert anyway). The moral of the story, kids, is that I am the banana cow. This should be my signature drink. If only one of my friends had an ice cream phobia I could make fun of...
I know it's not really very good to get drunk on a Sunday, but I'm sure that when I tell people at work tomorrow that I did it for the blog, they won't mind me stumbling around and throwing up out back behind the recycling bins.

Result: It's pretty mediocre, like a milkshake with no taste other than rum. I made four times as much as the recipe suggests because I was expecting it to be awesome and so had plenty of time to think about it and consider all the flavour facets. It wasn't sweet or banana-y enough, and unlike other sub par cocktails I've had in the past, this didn't get better the more you drank. People kept asking me for a taste, but I valiantly decided that this was my cross to bear and had to keep shooing them away from the blender.
My disappointment naturally necessitated the compilation of another cocktail, the banana daiquiri has lemons instead of milk in it, and it was much better. I was pretty tipsy and tired by now, but obviously if it has bananas AND lemons in it, it must be good for you and so I felt I had a duty to myself to drink it.
It was a perfect mix, a real girl's drink, and why don't I order this in the pub next time! ;)