Soup-tastic

What with Boyfriend having had a tooth removed at the end of last week, we've been having a lot of soups lately. More him than me, but I occasionally partake in his healthy bonanza. One of our favourites at the moment is butternut squash and sweet potato soup. I'm biased if I say you're bound to love this, because I reckon butternut squash is probably my favourite veg ever. Honest. E-VER. But if you feel the same way I do, all I can say is put down whatever it is you're doing, get yourself to the kitchen (via the supermarket if you don't happen to have the necessary ingredients) and get it on. It's that good.

You will need:

• half a butternut squash, cut in chunks
• 1 large onion
• 3 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut in chunks
• generous pinch of cayenne pepper and paprika

Method

• Preheat your oven to 195C.
• Place all the veg in a large baking tray, drizzle over some olive oil and sprinkle some cayenne and paprika. Put as much or little as you like, depends if you like it spicy or not! Add a little bit of freshly ground black pepper too.
• Put in the oven for 50min (until the veg is soft and cooked).
• Make 800ml of stock in a large bowl.
• Add the sweet potato and onion to the bowl.
• If you're not keen on eating the skin of the butternut squash, scrape off the flesh and add to the bowl. Otherwise, just chuck it all in.
• Mix using a hand blender.

This makes about 3 servings, but you can easily make more or less, depending on how many people you want to feed. (I usually make more and have it the next day for lunch or freeze it). And that's it! What do you put in your favourite soup?

A bit of the sea in my bedroom

It seems that I'm asking you to do a lot of remembering this week. First the secret project, then the blackberry brandy. Well I'm going to call on your fantastic brain power once more and show what other crafty project I finished this weekend. Last year around October time, we went on holiday to Norfolk for a week. We had a lovely time and I came back with pockets full of sea shells. I can't help myself, that's just how it is. I'd put some of the shells to good use pretty much straight away and I've enjoyed looking at them every day since. But I had lots leftover and had an idea that took some time to implement. I needed the right tools and it wasn't an easy task to get it all together. A deep frame, nails, a hammer, some varnish. The whole shabang.

It all started with painting all the shells with some varnish. Not really shiny tacky varnish, but just enough to make all their natural colours stand out (those that come out when the shells are wet which are the very reason why you pick them in the first place!).

And then the assembling took place. No photos of the in-between stages, and that for your own benefit. Because it was punctuated by numerous bouts of swearing. Not pretty I'm afraid. It just wasn't all going according to plan. It's still far from perfect, but from a distance, it's fine. It'll do. Now I know that's not the attitude I usually take, I like things to be perfect blablabla, but this time, it was best for my sanity that I put it aside. I can take it apart some other time, when I really have nothing better to do. One day.

Until then, it's adorning one of our bedroom walls. And I like it. Now I'd like to give out a big Thank You to Boyfriend for letting me loose with my paints and crazy ideas and letting me explore my creativity to the full!!

(Sorry about the mediocre photos, it's so difficult to photograph something which is covered in glass!)

Happy Wednesday all! [As The Girl says, it's hump day after all. Doesn't quite do it for me though. It think it's a close battle with Tuesdays as to which one's the worse!]

Boozy almondy cake

Well it's not exactly a boozy cake, but it definitely tastes of it. Want to know why? Do you remember the blackberry brandy I made last year? Well after the alcohol was transferred to bottles to give as Christmas presents and store in more convenient sized bottles, I kept the berries in jars in the fridge. They still looked fine and I couldn't get myself to throw them. Honestly, what could be wrong with berries infused with brandy? So I adapted a recipe found on the internet and made the most yummy cake ever. Well ok,  maybe not "ever", but trust me, if you make booze at home and have leftover fruit, use it wisely, make this cake. Honestly, I can't wait till the end of the summer when it'll be time to turn our sleeves up and pick blackberries again. A world without blackberries would be a very sad place indeed. Anyway, enough of the mentalism (you know what I mean!) and let's get cracking with this recipe.

You will need:

• 200g ground almonds
• 175g soft butter
• 200g golden caster sugar
• 200g self raising flour
• 3 eggs
• a dash of milk
• 250g boozy berries (blackberries used here - would obviously work fine with 'normal' fruit, but I'm sure it's much more fun with these little babies!)

Method

• Preheat your oven to 180C.
• Baseline and grease and deep 23cm tin.
• Mix together the almonds, butter, sugar, flour and eggs until well combined.
• Add the milk if your mix feels a little clumpy and heavy. Mix well.
• Spread half the mix in the tin - you'll probably need to use your fingers to do this properly.
• Scatter the fruit on top then dollop the rest of the mix and spread (again, use your fingers).
• If you have any flaked almonds lying around in a cupboard, sprinkle 2 tbsp on top, but if you're like me and you don't, you've run out, and you forgot to buy some more, just put it in the oven for 50min.

Enjoy as it is or with a large tablespoon of fromage frais. Yu-um!!!

Before I go, I want to say a big thank you to all of you who left a comment on my big tapestry reveal yesterday. It pleased me no end to know that you found it nice too!! You're the first people to see after Boyfriend (and the people at the art shop who did the framing, but they don't count really!), so I'm really really happy you like it!! xx

Secret project reveal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good morning all!! Thank you for your caring comments on Friday, Mr Petit Filoux was fine in the end, although a little pale when I got him home. He had a nice relaxing weekend and has another couple of days off to recuperate, so all is fine. I'm glad he's ok, you just never know with general anaesthetics, there's always a risk isn't there.

Anyway, moving on! How was your weekend? Wasn't the weather completely bonkers? One minute we had heavy snow, the next bright sunshine! It's funny how we've had so much snow this winter, something we don't often get in this part of the world. And I've found myself to be completely blazée now, going like "oh look there's snow - again"!! Funny how you get used to things quickly isn't it?!

Apart from that, I kept myself busy these last couple of days. Made the most of this precious time off. I finished a couple of crafty projects I had on the go and started some more knitting. One thing at a time though. I can't believe it's all done and I'm about to show it to you. Wondering what I'm going on about? Remember this secret project I'd vaguely mentionned? Well it's done. Hours of work have come to an end. And a very happy end at that. I'm so pleased with it, I'm a little nervous about showing it to you!! I hope you like it too! So without further ado, I present to you what will be welcoming all new visitors into my home:

As you can see, it's a "Home Sweet Home" sign in tapestry! Had any of you guessed it when I gave you a sneek peak a while back? I just love everything about it, love the fact that it's all my own design, with the flowers, the Union Jack background, the obligatory French flag, the orangey tulip (one of my favourite flowers!), the music notes, the steaming hot cup of tea, the bright sunshine... I'm so happy!!!! And what about you, do you like it? Oh I do hope so!!! I got it framed professionally at a local art shop, I thought it was worth it considering the amount of time I put in. I didn't want to do a shabby job at it and ruin it! So there, thinking about it and making this post to show it to you has put a smile of my face! Because I can tell you, after heavy snow and bus replacement services due to 'overruning engineering works' on my train line, I definitely needed it!! Hope you all have a lovely day xxx

A little something for him

A little white rose to wish him good luck...

Boyfriend is having a general anaesthetic today to have a nasty impacted wisdom tooth out. Fingers crossed it'll all go well.

ps: these flowers were given to my mum last year, so no I didn't buy him roses! Maybe I should have...!

Out of nowhere

This newly found love of mine: fabric. I never knew I'd like it so much until I discovered blogland. Until then, it simply never crossed my mind. Never. But now, well it's a whole different story. I dream of fat quarters and fabric stashes (as if a yarn stash isn't enough). I dream of owning a sewing machine, even perhaps a magnificient old school Singer. I dream of making wonderful clothes like so many of you do. But I have none of this. [For the moment, fear not, I'm sure I'll get onto it one day, when I move into my lovely dream house with a big garden, a cat and a dog. Yep.] So until then, I make myself happy with a little hand sewing. Using some gorgeous swatches and some hand picked lavender. Gorgeous little lavender pouches - bliss!

Pancakes with a difference

As you may recall, I was a little early with pancakes this year, having got a little confused with dates... oops!! But Boyfriend had a brilliant idea - let's ditch the dinner we had planned (soup) and live the rock and roll life. Let's have some savoury pancakes for dinner. Cheese and mushroom got a vague mention. And then I had a stroke of genius. Masala Dosai. A south Indian curry dish centered around a savoury pancake. We'd had it in the past a couple of times only at a restaurant in London and absolutely loved it. So there, that was it. I was determined to recreate this dish as best I could. Obviously, I didn't have 6 hours to soak the necessary ingredients to make the traditional Indian pancakes, but fear not I told my other half, I shall improvise and it shall be grand. And grand it was ;-)

Ingredients for the pancakes (makes 4):

• 150g plain flour
• 100g strong wholemeal flour
• 3 eggs
• 300ml skimmed milk
• pinch of salt
• tablespoon of desiccated coconut

Ingredients for the filling:

• 4 potatoes, cut into chunks and cooked
• one onion, sliced finely
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• half a habanero chilli, finely chopped
• thumb sized piece of ginger, finely chopped
• large handful of green peas (I used frozen ones, so I boiled them first separately)
• handful of mushrooms (I used frozen ones)
• 2 small tomatoes, finely chopped
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp tamarind paste
• 1 handful dried curry leaves
• large handful chopped coriander

Method:

Start by making your pancake batter. Put the two flours and salt in a mixing bowl, make a well in the centre and break your three eggs in the middle. Whisk the eggs and slowly incorporate the flour, then add the milk little by little. Whisk well after each addition to avoid getting lumps. Finally, add the coconut and give it all a good whisk. Leave to rest in the fridge until needed.

Then go on to making your filling. [Here I made a vegetarian one, but you could add lamb mince or chicken.] Peal and boil the potatoes. While the potatoes are cooking, heat some vegetable oil in a pan. Once the oil is hot, add the mustard and cumin seeds. Once they start to pop (about 1min), add the onion, turmeric and chilli. Give it all a good stir and leave to cook for 5min on medium heat. Add the mushooms, garlic and ginger. Cook for another 5min. Add the tamarind, followed by the tomatoes and curry leaves. Cook for another 5min. Finally, add the peas and drained potatoes. Coarsely mash the potatoes in the pan and mix it all together.

Your filling is now ready so all you need to do is cook your pancakes. They cook in the same way crêpes do, so get a crêpe pan out if you have one, oil it a bit and get cooking. These pancakes are a little heavy so you probably won't be able to flip them as easily. Once the pancake is cooked, put about three large tablespoons of the filling inside and fold over. Enjoy!!! xx

Healthy-ish snack?

Good morning everyone! Well another rainy day here today, but I got something to cheer myself up. Last night, I whipped up something quickly in the kitchen, after having seen a tasty looking recipe on a blog. I adapted the recipe slightly because 1/ it was in US measurements and 2/ I didn't have all the ingredients. But I can tell you this, it got Boyfriend's approval so it can't be that bad!!

You will need:

• 3 tablespoons of peanut butter (I used crunchy peanut butter because I love it like that)
• 5 tablespoons of liquid honey
• 3 "glasses" of brown rice crisp cereal (basically brown rice crispies - I found some in the health aisle of the supermarket - ingredients: 100% rice!)

Before I go on about the recipe, I want to say something about the "glasses". Basically the original recipe calls for 3 cups. But I don't have US cups in my house, so I used those glass glasses you get from small jars of Nutella. Or use one of those small Duralex glasses. Either way, you want a smallish glass.

So, the next step is to heat the honey and peanut butter on a medium heat for about 5min until it's all syrupy in terms of consistency. Meanwhile, oil a 9x9in tray and a mixing bowl. Tip the rice into the bowl, add the syrup once it's ready and give it all a good mix (you may find you need to use your hands for this). Press into your oiled dish and put in the fridge for an hour. After that, you can cut it up in pieces and enjoy!

Happy peanut buttery Tuesday all! xx

And here we go again!

Good morning everyone!! Can you believe it's Monday already? Again?!! Honestly, I think it should be the other way around: work 2 days a week, rest for 5. That's much more like it isn't it? Anyway, hope you all had a good weekend. I had another productive one, but not in the same way as the previous weekend. Don't have much to show for it really. Well not unless you want to see photos of drawers!! As you might have guessed, I did lots of tidying up!! The exciting sort though, the sort where you re-discover things you didn't remember were in your possession. Basically the room which is used as a guest bedroom/ office was slowly but surely being taken over by my crafty stuff, but it had become ridiculous. So off I went, emptied some drawers, effortlessly throwing all these things we don't need anymore. There's a certain type of pleasure you can only get from filling up a bin bag - know what I mean? So there, it's now all clean and tidy and I even did some crafty stuff in between, making good use of these re-discovered treasures and things which I'd put aside, knowing I'd know what to do with them one rainy day. Because let's face it, it didn't rain at the weekend, but it sure wasn't sunny. Over in my part of the world we saw more snow on Saturday and were faced with a wall of grey on Sunday. Good thing we don't buy into this Valentine's day commercial rubbish, because it was a pretty miserable day yesterday!! Anyway, I'll leave you with this. A photo of my lovely daffodils. They blossemed over the course of last week, and were diffusing quite a peculiar odour in the living room yesterday. Not unpleasant, just a little odd I guess. But the sight of them was quite wonderful. Like a private indoor ray of sunshine, just for Boyfriend and all. No sharing. ;-)

Three fat blokes and some cheese

Hey, bet you're wondering what I'm going on about?! Well let me show you the light!! Or more appropriately, the boards. Still doesn't make sense? Follow me...

Follow me to the land of cheese....

Oh goodness do I love cheese....

And what does too much cheese do to you? (because in moderation it's good, it's full of calcium ok!) It makes you a little chubby...

Combine the two, fold, mix and turn, flour a surface and do a bit kneading, leave to rise for a good few hours and as if by magic, you have the joy of seeing this turn up on your doorstep...

I absolutely love both of these!! The three fat blokes (les trois cuisiniers!) are in fact key holders which now live by the front door, and the cheese is a chalk board for the kitchen where we write the meals for the week!! [ordered from this supplier]

Hope you're having a lovely weekend and a happy valentines day to all!! xx