Dating Sight

It was a weekend of storms, but in the house it was somehow still and peaceful. A time of oneness and just "being". The previous weeks had been action packed and featured, amongst other things, a St Patrick's Day double-header, my first fraternal black tie dinner since 2019 and a long weekend deep in Eastern Countryside to celebrate an important milestone. 

At my time of life; the action packed days must be enjoyed and the opportunities realised, but the flipside of that is regular downtime needs to be taken to be at my best for those who are important to me. The weekend therefore of gardening, resting, reading, finding time for nature was much needed before the adventures begin again next week. 

With downtime comes cooking new and exciting recipes. Some to consume over the weekend, others to freeze and then microwave in the office so as to give something delicious and wonderful to fortify me during the working week. 

Yesterday's recipe was simple step back into the world of creating recipes for the food blog. It was inspired by trips to a wonderful Turkish Restaurant and an equally brilliant Persian Restaurant in a major city and links to both can be found at Zeugma Restaurants Sheffield (zeugmaiki.com) and QashQai Kitchen food review: A Sheffield heaven for Persian food just round the corner (thestar.co.uk) both of which serve wonderful sweet dishes, some of which are used when Muslims break their fast during Rhamadan.

I chose to make some stuffed dates and the ingredients to make this dish were as follows:

1. Eight Dates, with the stones removed. 

2. Around fifty grams of fruit and nut chocolate, melted to liquid in a sauce pan. The chocolate was a gift from my trip to the secluded East the previous weekend. 

3. Four tablespoons of Liquid Honey. 

4. Chia Seeds. 

On the player was Disc 1 of Pink Floyd's brilliant 1965-72 compilation called "The Early Years". The collection largely consists of re-mixes and rarities of most their output prior to their internal blockbuster "Dark Side of the Moon". Disc 1 is significant for showing how quickly they went from being a slightly quirky rock and roll and blues cover band to a world beating, transcending, force. It also has the bonus of a rare gig with their original and storied erratic genius Syd Barrett as frontman. 

With these still inventive sounds floating out of the player, I set to work by cutting a hole-about the size of my thumbnail- into the middle of each date. Then I melted the Chocolate, fruit and nut and left it to one side for a moment while I added the Chia Seeds and Honey to the centre of each date. 

While it was still cool and before it set, I topped the hole with the chocolate mixture. This soon set so as to keep the Dates together as well as ensuring the Chia and Honey Mixture remained in place. After it had all fully cooled, I placed it in the fridge overnight to help the Chocolate set. 

The next day, I removed the collection of Dates from the fridge to find the overnight cooling had done wonders to lock in the sweet flavours. A delicious treat during a relaxed weekend.