A Touch of Spice …

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art, beach huts, citrus, cupcakes, painting, turkish pizza, watercolour

A painting with the smallest hint of spice, a mildly spiced Turkish pizza and cupcakes spiced up with zingy citrus flavours – it’s been a flavoursome week.

I’ve missed painting during the week, by the time I’ve finished work and have done all the planning, marking and tea cooking that I need to do, I’ve not felt particularly inspired. I was pleased this evening when I did feel inspired and was able to spend some time painting these beach huts in various blue/green shades, with one small hint of orange spice on a door – sometimes it’s the most simple things which are the most enjoyable to do:

We all love a home made pizza here but sometimes it is good to try something new, hence this Turkish Pizza. I found the recipe in my ‘Spice Trip’ book – I love the fact that many recipes are actually quite mild whilst being incredibly tasty – this pizza or Lahmacun as it is known in Turkey, is the perfect case in point. The spices used are cumin, coriander and chilli, they are balanced out by the use of fresh parsley and fresh mint. There is no ‘sauce’ like we’d find on a traditional pizza, instead the minced lamb is mixed with a chopped red onion and a chopped fresh tomato:

The cupcakes that I baked last week had a real citrus kick, inside, I’d put some home made lemon curd, the cakes were then topped with a lemon and lime water icing, finished with some lime zest. They were well received at my book group (we all bring something different to eat, there are in fact times when we spend more time talking about and tasting the food than we do talking about the book we have chosen, hard to believe, I know) and those that I left at home were quickly ‘enjoyed’:

Acer, Baking & a new Curry …

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acer, art, biscuits, citrus, curry, painting, spice trip, watercolour

The acer in question is a beautiful tree in our garden. The leaves are a beautiful sage green in the centre, extending out to an almost lemon yellow around the edges, it was these colours that were my inspiration today. We planted the tree a few years ago and whilst it’s taken some time to take root, it’s now a true splash of colour in our very green garden:

 

 

It was lovely to spend a little time on saturday, browsing some of my favourite cookbooks. A mild curry was  my choice for saturday evening, taken from my Spice Trip book. There was lots of flavour from the spices (fenugreek, turmeric, coriander and cinnamon) and yet the taste of the cod wasn’t overwhelmed at all. The added bonus of some courgettes and fresh tomatoes made this a deliciously light and fresh meal, eaten outside so we could enjoy the last of the day’s sun:
To follow our curry, I made some ‘Citrus Fork Biscuits’, so called because once the dough is made into a ball, it is then flattened with a fork (this could be done equally well with a thumb if preferred). I used a combination of lemon and lime zest which made these treats a very ‘zingy’ end to our day:

Dill-lightful dishes and other things …

Tags

art, Baking, cooking, food, knitting, lace, painting, watercolour

My oldest returned from a 5 day camp yesterday afternoon and it has now become traditional for me to cook him a meal of his favourites on his return. We therefore had a delicious meal of steamed salmon served with green salad, potato salad (with crème fraîche, horseradish sauce, dill and seasoning) and a freshly baked milk loaf. To follow we had rocky road cupcakes:

He was a very happy boy and an added bonus was that there were lovely left overs for our tea today!

My first attempt at knitting ‘lace’ was completed yesterday. It has taken me about 4-5 weeks from start to finish and whilst it was the easiest of patterns, I’m really pleased with the result:

I think I’ll try a more complex pattern next time – I may try a few practice samples first though.

Last but not least, I painted some tulips this afternoon. I really tried to focus on creating proper leaf shapes, to the detriment of the tulip flowers however I am still fairly pleased with the result:

Butterflies …

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art, butterflies, painting, watercolour

I’d been having a bit of a sort out, or rather, I had intended to have a bit of a sort out of my art stuff when I came across a stack of illustrated card. I decided to personalise it a little by adding a butterfly, I then decided to see what my butterfly would look like on two very different backgrounds:

Bags of Style …?

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art, canvas bags, painting, watercolour

I recently took delivery of a couple of canvas bags, illustrated with my flamingo and my peacock. I’m pleased with the results and whilst they were not particularly cheap, the bags themselves are really sturdy and are of great quality:

Whether I sell them in the future remains to be seen, any feedback would be gratefully received though.

Something Fishy, Birthday Celebrations and a Colourful Curry …

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art, birthday, chocolate, curry, fish, foccacia, meringue, painting, risotto, shortbread, strawberries, tiramisu, watercolour

I thoroughly enjoyed painting today. I used salt to add texture to the sky within the fish – it was good to use it again and had forgotten how effective it can be:
It was my parents’ birthday lunch at the weekend. It went really well, there were a few surprises along the way and luckily all the food turned out as well as I had hoped;

Chicken Risotto with White Truffle Oil, served with Foccacia Bread was our main course. This was another recipe from Katie Quinn Davies ‘What Katie Ate’ and it was very tasty indeed. To follow, we had a choice of 3 desserts:

Tiramisu has been a long term favourite and here we had our own individual servings. I’d made the sponges and had assembled the puddings the night before, this gave the sponges plenty of time to soak up the coffee and brandy.

Strawberries dipped in melted chocolate and served with the buttery-est of shortbread biscuits went down well too.

I couldn’t give my parents a special celebratory lunch without meringues, it’s amazing how egg whites and caster sugar can transform themselves in to such deliciousness!! The leftovers were good the next day too

Yesterday we had a hot, spicy and very colourful curry. The weather has not been great so far this week and this hearty dish was just what we needed to brighten our day:

 

A Painting, a Pizza and a Plant or two …

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art, garlic bread, painting, pizza, plants, seedlings, watercolour

Having not painted for a couple of weeks, I was determined to at least try this weekend. Yesterday, once the boring stuff was done (supermarket, washing, cleaning etc, etc) and thanks to lots of help from my boys, I was able to spend a very lovely hour or so painting. I used the colours that I could see around me, for my inspiration:

Home made pizza and garlic bread was our tea last night. I’ve made a few of these recently but have only made them for when the boys have had friends round. We enjoyed ours, sitting in the garden, enjoying the last bit of warmth from the sun.

We have had a lot of rain over the past 2 weeks so, as well as painting, yesterday was the first chance I’ve had in a couple of weeks to check on whether the seeds I planted in our very tiny greenhouse, had sprouted. I was amazed to see that indeed they had:

Think I’ll be thinning these over the next few days.

I mentioned last time that I was trialling different meals in preparation for my parents’ birthday lunch next weekend. I’m happy to say that the menu is now planned and I think they will both really enjoy it. I can’t say any more at this stage as my mum reads this – you will all have to wait till next weekend !

A Birthday Surprise …

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art, Baking, cake, chocolate, cooking, food

It was my Dad’s 70th birthday last week, both he and my Mum hit this milestone within a few weeks of each other. They are both coming for a celebratory lunch in a couple of weeks – I’m having fun trying out a few different dishes on my family as I decide what to cook for the day itself. On my Dad’s birthday, we decided to surprise him by turning up at the restaurant Mum was taking him to that evening. Staff at the restaurant had suggested to my Mum that a cake could be brought for us to have at the end of the meal, chocolate is my Dad’s favourite and this is what I made for him:

It was lovely to spend some time with them both on Dad’s birthday, driving 2 hours each way was definitely worth it.

A Week of Sunshine …

Tags

abstract, art, chocolate fondant, curry, painting, quiche lorraine, watercolour

It’s been a long time coming but the sunshine is finally here, I’m not sure how long it will last but am determined to make the most of it. We’ve been eating outside (food tastes so much better outdoors for some reason), I’ve planted some more seeds in a (very) mini greenhouse and when we had friends over for lunch yesterday, we spent the whole day in the garden, chatting away the hours.

The painting that I’ve been doing over the past three days has turned in to a bit of an abstract. I’ve been inspired by the flowers and foliage that seems to have had a sudden growth spurt over the past week or so, I was also inspired by thoughts of the seaside, sailing boats and crashing waves. All of these thoughts somehow ended up in one painting:

The best use of a tea towel (or two), ever I think:

I found these two beauties last weekend and decided they were too lovely to be used for drying dishes, they look much better handing on the doors of our ‘shudio’!

The start of summer heralds altogether much fresher and tastier food.

Here we have a very simple pasta dish, served with smoky lardons, goats cheese, red onions and a chipotle chilli sauce. The smokiness of the lardons was very much enhanced by that of the chipotle sauce: I’m not sure what to call this next dish, it’s a kind of a curry (cumin, ginger, turmeric and coriander were all used) but it’s also a broth. We normally have coconut milk in our prawn curries but as we had none, I had to improvise. Cooking the noodles in a vegetable stock and then ladling this into the bowls, on top of the prawns meant that we had a very fresh tasting, zingy meal: I took this photo, simply because it was a gorgeously lazy sunday morning and whilst everyone else was still asleep, I treated myself to a ‘full-on’ freshly ground cup of coffee with vanilla syrup, frothy milk and cocoa sprinkles: Lunch yesterday was a quiche lorraine, green salad, foccacia and a beetroot salad. The quiche recipe did however come from Heston Blumenthal’s ‘At home with Heston’ book and it took forever to make. Not only did the pastry have to be refrigerated once and frozen twice (I know!), the filling had to reach 63℃ on the hob and then 70℃ once it was in its pastry case in the oven. The onions had to cook for an hour too – this was definitely a recipe to make ahead. I was hopeful that all the effort would be worth it and the proof of the quiche is in the eating: I have to say that it was completely delicious, never before have I tasted a quiche with such a depth of flavour, it was amazing.

To follow, we had Chocolate Fondants. This was the second time I have made them and this time I followed Raymond Blanc’s recipe which is in the current edition of ‘delicious’ magazine. In contrast to the quiche, it was ridiculously easy to make and the timings worked perfectly: Here’s the very mini greenhouse that I mentioned earlier, I did say it was very mini:

A Very ‘Bristol’ Painting …

Tags

art, clifton suspension bridge, painting, watercolour

There’s not been much time for painting or photographing food this week so it’s just 1 photo today. I’ve been meaning to paint a new image of the Clifton Suspension Bridge for a while now and so I decided on one that would include a hot air balloon: