A Year in Photos 2014

Happy holidays to you all! Slight unplanned blog holiday there, that life thing getting in the way once again. Inevitably, I of course resolve to blog more in the new year, but with a thesis to write, we'll see how that goes... Anyhow, here are my favourite photos (from on and off the blog) from 2014, here's to a good 2015!

The year started with some epic weather, but beauty can be found in the wintery Dorset countryside

Crisp bright days in Febuary

Company from a black panther on a domestic March afternoon

New life in spring

An early summer day looking down the spine of Dorset

Posers on the sands

Time to disappear...

Pirates in Portugal?

Trying to make the most of the autumnal bounty

The benefit of shorter days in October - capturing the sunrise at the highest point of my commute

A return to the delights of Kew, nice to hang out in the jungle again and forget about the November chill

An excellent reason to get out of bed - probably the best sunrise I have ever seen

Happy New Year one and all!

Hedgerow Pesto

Food wise, I don't think autumn can be beaten. I love big salads and super-fresh tomatoes in the summer, but as the nights start to draw in the comfort food can come out. I've also been exploring what nature has to offer, to pair with some of the more unusual ingredients that are arriving in my weekly veg box. This pesto creation is one of my usual slightly off-the-wall concoctions, but it is tasty so I'll share anyway. It isn't really a recipe as such, as I definitely didn't measure anything!

Tasty fresh ingredients are the key, so lots of fresh basil, which I have miraculously kept alive on my window sill. I used a good couple of handfuls, plus lots of good olive oil, a bit of garlic and some parmesan.

I whizzed everything up in a food processor, not forgetting the key ingredient, foraged hazelnuts. There are absolutely loads round here at the moment, and I think if they are picked when a bit green they work really well as a pine nut substitute. Plus they are free!

I got some beautiful fresh borlotti beans in my veg box, and didn't have much of a clue what to do with them, so I boiled them for about 45 mins until soft, in well-seasoned water with mixed herbs. I then mixed the pesto and beans together with some gnocci, sundried tomatoes, raw cucumber and a little greek yoghurt.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I will never be a food blogger ;)

Winter Roast Veg Salad

After a rather indulgent weekend last week I felt the need for a good dose of vegetables. After a bit of aimless internet browsing I decided on a wintery salad, making the most of some in season root vegetables. This is a fairly standard Julia recipe, nice and easy! And of course completely flexible as to what veg goes in.

Ingredients (serves 2):
2 carrots
1 pack pre-cooked beetroot (not in vinegar), or could use fresh
2 parsnips
2 small red onions
Couple of handfuls of spinach
Handful of rocket
4 spring onions
Olive oil
Mixed herbs
2-4 Eggs

1. Chop the root veg into even chunks

2. Put in a sandwich bag with a tablespoon of olive oil and some mixed herbs, tie closed and give a good mix by shaking around. this is a nice and easy way of coating the veg in oil without using too much!

3. Empty the oiled veg into an oven dish, stick in a preheated oven (approx. 180C) until well roasted, stirring occasionally. I left mine for about an hour as I was on Skype, and they came out great :)

4. Serve on a bed of spinach, rocket and chopped spring onions, top with one or two fried/poached eggs. You could add some feta or goats cheese too.

 One on my eggs was seriously orange, it tasted good!

Tasty Broccoli and Egg Tart

Food! This broccoli and egg tart was a really easy and tasty dinner for this week, and as I used pre-rolled pasty, super-lazy! Loosely inspired by the recipe here, This is an infinitely adaptable recipe, and a nice alternative to pizza, although much the same concept.

I'll give you a basic recipe, but you can put on any topping really!

Ingredients for mine:
pack of pre-rolled puff pastry
1 head of broccoli
1 avocado
1 yellow pepper
1 medium red onion
roughly 100g goats cheese
3 eggs
Wholegrain mustard

Spread out the pastry on to a baking sheet, prick with a fork and blind bake for 10 mins.

Meanwhile, boil the broccoli until cooked to how you like it.

Fry the onions until softened and add the yellow pepper and cook for a couple of mins, then stir in a teaspoon of mustard.

Once everything is cooked, spread the onion mix onto the pastry, then pile of the broccoli, avocado and cheese. Try to leave wells for the eggs. Crack the eggs into the gaps, then bake the whole thing for another 10 mins or so, until the eggs are cooked to your liking.

I had it with salad and yoghurt on the first day, then baked beans the next!

What would you put on yours? :)

Things I Ate and Liked...

Not all in one go mind! Just the highlights from a couple of weeks of food. Cooking for only myself does tend to result in ingredients getting repeated, I still haven't got through that entire packet of wraps, why do they come in eights?!

Anywho, wrap variation number 1, meat making a rare appearance in the form of very nice steak, mixed in with some kidney beans and caramelised onion, creme fraiche and salad keeping company. Yes I did use a spoon to keep it together, classy stuff.

Another wrap variation, no meat required this time, just a spicy red kidney bean and veg mix, some emmental, more creme fraiche and salad, and two wraps, must have been friday or something.

There might have been a cheeky cocktail keeping those company too, grapefruit vodka, orange juice and a hunk of lime, does that count as a cocktail? Served in a proper wine glass, more classiness right there...

Final, slightly left-field wrap-based meal. The topping is a recipe from Everyday Veg by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, an aubergine curry, obviously with my usual tinkering of lots of extra veg. And I toasted the wrap in a frying pan so I could pretend it was a chapatti, kind of authentic. maybe. Then I added a vast quantity of creme fraiche...

Saturday! That means afternoon treats whilst out adventuring :)

The final, triumphant delight is this pasta creation, absolutely classic representation of my cooking, i.e. throw it all together and see what it tastes like. tricolore pasta, this pesto recipe (but with cashews not pine nuts), runner beans from the garden, red pepper, olives, goats cheese and the last of that persistent creme fraiche. Pretty tasty, although it isn't going to win any beauty prizes. I put a sprig of basil on for you though!

What do YOU eat and like?

Julia's 15 Minute Meals

Actually it probably takes less than 10 mins, and that is a win in my very lazy book. This is some sort of egg-fried noodle concoction, and it tastes pretty damn fine, even if I do say so myself!

Ingredients:
Noodles - Any will do but I used dried Nikko egg ones from the oriental shop near me, they take 3.5 mins to cook
Veg of choice - today I had 1 carrot and half a courgette, cut into thin strips using a peeler
Egg
Soy sauce
Roasted sesame oil
Fresh ginger
Garlic (I have the lazy stuff in a jar)
Coriander to garnish (oooh fancy), I also added in some radishes because I had some to use up and why the hell not? :)

1. Bring some water to a boil for noodles
2. Meanwhile, prep veg, and pre-heat frying pan/wok with a bit of sesame oil
3. Add noodles to the water
4. Fry up the veg in the sesame oil for a couple of mins, then add a generous slosh of soy sauce
5. Into the veg grate a bit of fresh ginger and add a bit of garlic, however much you like, and stir, cook for another couple of mins
6. Drain noodles once they are cooked, add to veg
7. Stir together well, then crack in the egg
8. Allow the egg to cook for a few seconds then break it up and mix it in with the noodles and veg
9. Mix in fresh radishes and lots coriander
10. Done! Although I would highly recommend adding a drizzle of this stuff, it is immense:

Pay Out

I'm not going to claim any great success with this gardening thing, but some things have actually grown! I am very excited about even the smallest harvest, and everything definitely tastes better when it  is eaten only minutes (or seconds!) after being plucked from the plant. I will persevere :)

Busy Bee

Bindweed is the bane of my life! Perhaps a little over-dramatic, but my garden is over-run with the stuff, especially if I leave it for a few days. Anyway, I do like having a garden, the first raspberries are starting to ripen, my courgette plant is getting huge, and the bees are buzzing. Happy Saturday everyone!

All The Food

I had some sort of horrible stomach bug all of last week, which actually made me lose my appetite, a very rare occurrence and a sure sign that I was actually pretty ill! Thankfully i'm feeling better now, and I certainly made up for the lack of food over this weekend! I very rarely buy meat, but a trip to the brilliant farmers' market here in Bath got me parting with my cash. Here is a selection of the gluttony that ensued.

Beautiful Bath Blue

Some sexy caramelised onions

Those onions and cheese with some delicious venison steak

1kg of free range bacon offcuts for £3! damn tasty stuff too

More venison steak, this time with purple sprouting broccoli and some new potato chips, and blue cheese sauce too

What a delicious weekend :)

Life is Absurd

A Few of My Favourite Things

Lately I have been on a bit of a decluttering spree, probably brought on by having to make several car trips to move into my new house, too much effort! I would love to have less STUFF clogging up my life. I am making some progress, and the best thing about remove the crap is being left with only the things that I really love, or need. Here are a few of my 'essentials'.

1. Lovely Teapigs tea. This was a christmas present, and is absolutely the best tea ever, I'll be exploring some more of their range very soon I think!
2. Somewhere for that tea to go: my delightful Whittard's teapot and cup set, an excellent gift from my boyfriend a few years ago. I don't think they have this exact style any more, but they do have lots of sets of tea-for-one like this.
3. Books! I love books. If it came to it I could probably live with just two suitcases of stuff, one for books, one for everything else. Top recent reads include: "In defence of dogs" By John Bradshaw, which has completely changed my perspective on man's best friend, and "Mostly Harmless" by Douglas Adams, number 5 in the hitchhikers guide 'trilogy', and a fabulously surreal end to the bonkers series. The stack on the bottom right contains books that I am reading currently or need to read.
4. My beautiful christmas present from my best friend, handmade by her. Commission something amazing at Eliza Jayne Ceramics, or take a look at her Etsy shop.
5. Not necessarily something I love, but a symbol of it perhaps, here are 4 years' worth of train tickets, I give the rail companies far too much of my money...