Month: May 2012

Desk of the week!

In the bag

I did lots of little excited dances when I was asked to feature on Kindred HQ’s desk of the week yesterday! Such a lovely site and I am over the moon! Click here to see the whole interview

So incase you were wondering what all the little bits and bobs which I surround myself with are….

1. Trusty Laptop

2. Toast with avocado, spinach and poached egg for lunch! Blend half an avocado with a handful of spinach and some lemon juice for a superfood spread.

3. Please do not expect me to string together a sentence before I’ve had a double espresso

4. In a vague attempt to get my things in some kind of order I have gone mad on ebay buying up vintage biscuit tins! Seemed logical.

5. Photos of lovely people

6. Flyer for my end of year exhibition from my degree at Norwich School of Art & Design. This holds lovely memories, and it’s also a useful reminder of the year of my graduation for when I am filling out forms.

7. Tiny wooden cat from my brother when he lived in Japan

8. I love this clutch purse and although it is almost ruined by cocktail stains I can’t seem to part with it.

9. Rusty pie tins for more storage – not one of my better ideas.

10. Old graze platter boxes are super for cards and envelopes though.

11. Recipe cards from Abel & Cole – their veg boxes are super!

12. My lovely yellow satchel 🙂

Ahem…and here’s all the rest of the stuff I cleared off the desk onto the floor to take the picture! Sshhhh 😉

Vegan in the house

Recipes

Richard is rehearsing for Kin right now and we have the stage manager, Liam staying with us. He arrived straight from Heathrow airport on Tuesday night after spending the last 18 months travelling. It must have been a bit of a shock to his system to be thrown straight into a busy London theatre schedule only hours after stepping of a plane from a very extended holiday in India. Richard had made some pork and lentil stew with some boiled grain mix so there was plenty left over to heat up when he arrived, but on the realisation that Liam was Vegan I quickly began frying plantain, toasting sunflower seeds and slicing avocado in blind panic. I have never cooked Vegan food before because I know so few. Luckily he seemed happy enough with the strange plate of grains, seeds, vegetables and salad I handed to him but I felt that I really should come up with some proper food to give him next time.

I asked a few leading questions to find out what sort of food he likes and last night, after consulting a handful of vegetarian cook books and a whole host of vegan blogs I decided to try and make him a decent meal.

I found it extremely hard at first because it seemed to me that almost every thing I like to make included egg, yoghurt or cheese somewhere so I really had to concentrate and not finish sauces with butter or add a splash of milk to anything. I chose to make these Vegan Bangers and Mash and a Carrot cake recipe I found online and I think, for my first attempt at Vegan cookery it wasn’t too bad.

Vegan Sausages

Ingredients

1 punnet of mushrooms, weighing around 400g, finely diced

2 small onions finely diced

1 clove of garlic, crushed

100g of oats

1 tbsp of wholemeal flour (plus extra for coating)

1 tbsp of peanut butter

dried thyme

tsp of fresh herbs like savoury, chives or flat leaf parsley

salt and black pepper

Olive oil

Method

Fry the mushrooms in a little olive oil until cooked through. Place in a large mixing bowl and then fry the onions. When they start to soften add to the mushrooms. Into the mushrooms and onion mix add the flour, oats, peanut butter, herbs garlic and seasoning. Stir really well squashing and mashing everything together. (I blitzed mine in the hand blender very very slightly so that it stuck together a little better but still kept lots of chunks of mushroom and onion, I won’t lie, it’s not a pretty mixture but it will turn out ok).

Leave the mixture to cool until it is cold enough to handle. Put about 2 or 3 tablespoons of flour onto a plate and dust your hands with flour too – the mixture is sticky – and shape the mixture into 9 sausages. Roll them in the flour and then shallow fry in a little more olive oil until golden brown.

I served mine with mashed potato (made with soya milk and olive oil) with spinach and nutmeg folded though it and a splash of onion and rosemary gravy.

For dessert we had this Carrot Cake from the Permaculture Magazine website. Although, I didn’t have any maple syrup so I used honey which was still really nice…big slices got eaten so I suspect that is a good sign.

There’s no business like…food business!

Cooking

Working from home as a freelance food writer is brilliant! I am my own boss and am doing the job I love. The only problem is the occasional dip* in motivation. In the past, when I have worked for other organisations I pull out all the stops to meet the deadlines set by my employer, now that I’m my own employer I seem to have become a bit of a slacker, perhaps I should put myself on a formal warning.

*substitute “dip” for plummet!

I hate letting other people down but for some reason I find it very easy to let myself down, I’ll work all night or all weekend for somebody else but can easily spend weeks watching the Fraiser box set instead of writing my book. Thankfully help is out there. A few months ago I found an organisation called Kindred HQ on twitter who seem to be a great big digital hug to freelancers. They have life coaching tips, fingers in almost every social media pie and are now running regular meet-up events called “Jelly” where freelancers can work together. Super! I particularly enjoy their “desk of the week” feature on their website where you get to have a little nosy at someone else’s workspace – another thing I’m probably clicking on when I should be cooking or writing!

Reading through the motivational tips or life coaching advice the recurring themes seem to be to:

  • break daunting projects down into smaller tasks
  • get the boring or difficult pieces of work out of the way first
  • and to tell other people your plans in order to help you stay focussed.

I have decided to go one step further than just telling my friends what I am doing, instead I have chosen to work with them; as I am convinced that I will be much more motivated on collaborative projects – I will want to make it a success for them too, much more than if I were to work on something alone.

Firstly I am hoping to go into business with Bradley, a fantastic chef and actor. We are planning some exciting new food and events projects in London (that’s all you’re getting on this for now, you’ll have to keep checking back for details!)

Secondly, I am meeting up with Animation Director Helen Piercy tomorrow as we are hopefully going to be producing some more cookery videos! It was enormous fun to work with her on a video of Strawberry Brunch Recipes (as part of a zine I published last year) and I cannot wait to work with her again.

My friend Alison (who popped round for the gnocchi making workshop) took me to see Alan Carr – Chatty Man being filmed last night. It was a brilliant evening and I came out buzzing with ideas ready for my meeting with Helen. Strangely the ides are mostly fashion related as part of the show featured a very exciting performance by Nelly Furtado, who was dressed in a long sleeve gold sequinned top and black skinny trousers with a long black mesh skirt over the top. Alison is now convinced that this is the kind of thing I should be wearing in my cookery videos…watch the show and let me know what you think! (Channel 4, Fri 18 May, 10pm) oh and 10 points if you can spot us in the audience!

Today I got stuck into making sketches, watching YouTube videos of cookery shows and writing. I haven’t felt this motivated in months and I seriously think it is the thought of collaborating which is keeping me so focussed….not that focussed though, I paused for a break, got distracted and left my lunch to burn in the saucepan, luckily I remembered before the house caught fire! I’m off to the shops to buy a scouring pad. x

When Jack came to stay.

Cooking, Recipes

Jack is my sister-in-law’s brother…or my brother’s brother-in-law . . . surely there has to be a shorter way of saying this.

Anyway, Jack has been asking for my help to prepare for his new university course in digital games design. His background is in engineering which, excitingly, means all his digital designs of trains and cars would actually work if made in real life. The other students on the course are likely to have come from art courses and Jack wanted to hang out with me and try and get up to speed on arty fartiness! I found a timeline of art history, selected some examples of key pieces I like and why, and came up with this analogy to help him evaluate works of art.

“Lashings of Orange Juice & Lemonade”

The best thing I could come up with was “orange juice and lemonade”. Normally this is a mocktail, perhaps chosen by designated drivers down the pub or anyone in need of a quick thirst-quenching sugary hit.

I use it to explain art (I promise there is method to this madness):

  • The orange juice represents the conceptual integrity of the work, the idea, story or message that the artist wishes to communicate with the viewer.
  • The lemonade is representative of the aesthetic quality or the level of technical skill required to produce the work.

And finally:

  • The glass in which these liquids are poured is my perception of the piece.

For example; I feel that a painting like John by Chuck Close would be a full glass of lemonade – this is because of the incredible photorealistic quality requiring enormous technical skill. Fountain by Marcel Duchamp is a urinal (which he didn’t make himself, basically he just chose it to exhibit to challenge the art world). In its historical context this is a brilliant and humorous thing; a big glass of orange juice for me! Another of my favourite paintings is Empire of Light by René Magritte. In my opinion this is a large glass of both orange juice and lemonade in equal quantities. Check it out if you haven’t see it before.

I use this analogy because it reminds me to split my evaluation into an analysis of the concept and of the aesthetic quality. Also, it’s a little less risky to go around a small gallery whispering to your friend “barely a drop of orange juice in this one, no lemonade either” rather than “that’s a rubbish painting, the message it is trying to convey is weak and it’s not very well drawn”.

We spent the rest of the day loading up on coffee and creativity. We discussed conceptual art in the Tate Modern, grabbed a quick lunch from the stalls at Borough Market and then went sketching in the V&A. We arrived home with sensory and caffeine overloads and completely drenched from a downpour.

After a quick change I took a look in the kitchen cupboard to see what I could do for dinner. We were due at a party that evening; a fundraiser for the production of As You Like It which my boyfriend Richard is currently performing in – catch it quick before it ends on the 19th of May!

The party was 1920s fancy dress and aptly named Jazz You Like It! Knowing there would likely be a number of cocktails (and we all still needed time to get dressed up) a speedy-stomach lining meal was required. Manwiches seemed the only answer!

Manwiches

  1. Roast a selection of your favourite root veggies, garlic and onions in olive oil or cold pressed rapeseed oil.
  2. Toast some thick slices of bread and spread both sides with hummus (store bought is fine)
  3. Pile in the roast vegetables, sprinkle with zahtar mix and some crumbled feta and form the sandwich with the other slice of toasted bread.

Scrummy! If you are about to go out on the tiles I suggest you scoff these before you get your glad rags on- they’re mighty messy!

The party was brilliant, there was a raffle and Jack won an hour of personal martial arts and fitness training! We donated a dinner party for 4 which we shall be cooking in the winner’s house…a blog post for another day I predict.

Happy cooking!