Thursday, December 31, 2009

Gin and Tonic Jelly

As requested, the recipe for the Friendsmas 2009 dessert, courtesy of the Prima Domestica Goddess herself, Nigella Lawson.

Gin and Tonic Jelly

300ml plus 50ml water
300g caster sugar
zest and juice of 2 lemons
400ml tonic water (not slimline!) (that's Nigella's comment, I assume she means diet)
250ml gin
8 sheets of leaf gelatine
2 punnets of whitecurrants or 3-4 punnets raspberries, optional (I used blueberries as that's what was in season and looking good)
1 teaspoon icing sugar if using raspberries
1.25 litre jelly mould, lightly greased with almond or vegetable oil

Put the water and sugar into a wide, thick-bottomed saucepan and bring to the boil. Let boil for 5 minutes, take off the heat, add the lemon zest and leave to steep for 15 minutes. Strain into a measuring jug, then add the lemon juice, the tonic water and the gin; you should have reached the 1200ml mark; if not, add more tonic water, gin or lemon juice to taste.

Soak the gelatine leaves in a dish of cold water for 5 minutes to soften. Meanwhile, put 50ml of water into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, squeeze out the gelatine leaves and whisk them in. Pour some of the gin and lemon syrup mixture into the saucepan and then pour everything back into the jug. Pour into the mould and, when cold, put in the fridge to set. This should take about 6 hours.

When you are ready to unmould, half-fill a sink with warm water and stand the jelly mould in it for 30 seconds or so. Clamp a big flat plate over the jelly and invert to unmould, shaking it as you do so. If it doesn't work, stand it in the warm water for another half-minute or so and try again. If you've used a dome mould, surround the jelly with whitecurrants or fill the hole with them if you've used a ring mould. Raspberries are just as good, but dust these with icing sugar - it sounds poncey, but it makes the pale-jade glimmer of the jelly and the otherwise-too-vibrant red of the fruit come together on the plate. The whitecurrants should be left to glimmer, opal-like, without interference.

Serves 8.

Variation: To make a vodka and lime jelly, simply substitute 6 limes for the lemons and use vodka in place of the gin.

My notes: This is definitely a "make the day before" dessert. Also don't stand the mould in warm water for too long as this is a very soft wobbly jelly. It is also quite alcoholic as the gin is never heated so doesn't lose any alcohol.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Wardrobe refashion - #1 T-shirt to singlet

A while ago I was inspired by my more crafty friends who have taken items from thrift shops or those languishing at the back of their wardrobe and refashioned them into contemporary, wearable items of clothing.

Now my wardrobe is very lean to start with. Several years ago I went through it ruthlessly and many bags of wearable, just not by me, items went to friends or charity. These days, I tend to have the reverse problem in that I have a small selection of clothes that get such high rotation that I rarely have more than a weeks worth of clothes. And then there is the growing pile of clothes that are deemed "gym" or "gardening". These are items that probably started life as work or casual clothes, but due to wear, fading, stains or tears are now only fit to be sweated in or covered in dirt.

Where I've been looking for refashion candidates are the clothes that I don't wear at all, but still have for some reason. I have a few T-shirts that have sentimental value to me, mostly because they are attached to events and have various images and words screen printed on them. Unfortunately, like many "event" t-shirts, they are very boxy, straight cut "mens" style T-shirts. I find them too big and too high necked to be comfortable to exercise or garden in, but I don't want to part with them. My solution - refashion them into singlets, taking care to keep the screen-printing as a central feature. This will allow me to bring some function to a piece of nostalgia.

T-shirt to singlet refashion #1 - The College War t-shirt*I forgot to take a photo of the t-shirt before cutting it up. Fortunately the Cunning Plans Dept has one of the same size in green. Just in case anyone gets confused when it turns purple in the subsequent photos.

This t-shirt is probably the most worn and faded in the pile, mainly because I used to wear it for fighter training many years ago. I picked it to start with as it I was less likely to be upset if I failed miserably and ended up with an unwearable pile of rags.

First step was to unpick the t-shirt pieces and iron them flat. This was when I discovered that other feature of cheap t-shirts, which is that they aren't cut very straight. It's a pet peeve of mine as I hate how the side seams migrate around your body with garments that aren't cut straight. Fortunately, it looked like I probably had enough room to cut the singlet pieces straight.

I used one of my singlets to trace a pattern onto the t-shirt fabric. I ran into a bit of a challenge with placing the print on the front piece. I like a deep scoop-neck on my singlets. However, due to where the print was place on the t-shirt, it meant that to have enough fabric to reach the shoulder seam and still have a deep scoop, I wasn't going to be able to leave enough fabric to do a rolled edge on the neckline. No problem, I figured I could do a slim bound edge like most commercial singlets have.

I cut out the singlet pieces and sewed up the sides. I then cut lengths from t-shirt sleeve pieces to make binding for the neck and arm holes. I haven't worked much with stretch fabric before and I must admit I found it's tendency to curl up very annoying.
The end result of the edging I'm generally pleased with. Above is a good section with neat double row of top-stitching.
This shows both the raw edges on the inside and the bit of a wobble I had with the front neckline (it isn't meant to have that bulgy bit in the middle), which isn't as noticable when I'm wearing the singlet, but still it could have been neater.
I also had some trouble with the inside curve and need to make a note to stretch the binding a bit more so I don't get the little fold shown above.
And here is the end result - a singlet that I actually wear - even if it is mostly at the gym or in the garden. One garment that was languishing in a drawer is now back in wardrobe circulation.