Back to reality - Carpathian style

 Well. That was fun, at least for me and for quite a few happy people who loved Vanessa's Snow Queen story, whenever you've been able to watch it this weekend. It seemed like a fittingly time-spanning, strawberry-scented, cold-hot-scary-happy-quiet-loud evocation of a strange year, and all the many feelings we've managed. Thank you to everyone who joined in.

 

Cocktail *and* story-related herbal tea, kindly provided by Katie

 

Thank you also to everyone who joined in a rather scattergun Confined Cookalong, which I'm afraid was mostly me recreating terrible party food. But I had a *lot* of fun with it, and so long as you can stomach this stuff, I highly recommend picking a random meal to replace with alllll the ridiculous choices of your childhood.

I don't actually recommend bunny on the lawn, tbh. Too sinister.

The vaguely respectable bit of my cookalong was a rather intriguing yoghurt cake from Carpathia, a newish book to me which I've not cooked out of much till this week. The usual sort of deal - separated eggs, flour, sugar, agent, vanilla, but also oil and yoghurt instead of butter. And apricots on top. It is pleasingly brilliant yellow thanks to the egg yolks, and springlike. 

And tonight, off the crisps and back to the grown up food, I'm still cooking from Carpathia, and using up yoghurt. Polenta yoghurt balls this time. 

As ever, quick polenta is both excellent and a bit of a pain as it happens so fast - but basically, make a stiffish polenta mix with boiling water and salt, then stir in butter, grated Cheddar and a big slug of yoghurt. If you also have insta-polenta, do it FAST.

 Pour out onto a baking sheet to cool down (but not get fully cold - about 20 mins is advised.) Gloopy at first, but it solidifies fast. 

When cool enough to handle, form it into little balls, curled around a pinch of grated cheese - hard goat or sheep cheese is advised, but I'm sure you could use cheddar here too if you didn't need the rest for cheese-n-pineapple leftover lunches. 

These are going in the oven, with a pan of cherry tomatoes and a smidge of oil, to create a sauce for the dish. (You could do my cumin-balsamic tomatoes tbh. I didn't but the plain ones aren't as nice. Pfft.)

Then... well. I was thinking how handy these were, like arancini but doable without needing leftover risotto and a deep fryer. In the oven though...

Splat. 

They are perfectly tasty and viable, but with anything other than cheese in the middle likely not so much. Not quite arancini level. I may have slightly increased the water over the recipe, but otherwise spot on, so I'm not sure how you sort out the

Still, a happy plateful. You want a yoghurt blob too, except I forgot that part. Good winter fare, but not only for the cold depths. I commend them to you.