Chrismas montage 2014! This time with added family! xxx
Megan Dress
Yay!
Crazy Hudson Pants
Whoo!!!! I made some crazy leggings! (and a navy Coco- It's so comfy and flattering (maybe not in this picture...)) They're so cool! Hehe!!! I'm so pleased with them! They're super neat and have POCKETS! I really like pockets.
Here's a blurry photo of the pocket. These leggings are the Hudson Pant from True Bias with some fabric from Minerva Crafts. They were super easy to make, especially as there was no zipper related psychological barrier to overcome. I think I'm going to make a few more pairs (maybe in less crazy patterns)...
Butternut Squash 3 ways
Sorry for being super slow about this! Bonus 3 for 1 though! Here are my favouritest butternut squash recipes ever (They're all vegan too- booyah):
Butternut Squash Chilli
1 BNS
2 red onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 red chilli
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika
1 cup red lentils
1 jar sun dried tomatoes
2 tins tomatoes
1 tin kidney beans
salt and pepper
1) Chop up that BNS. Leave the skin on (don't waste your life peeling it :P ). Plop it in a roasting tray and roast it at a high temperature until it's a bit squidgey.
2) Chop and fry the onion
3) Crush in the garlic and some chopped chilli.
4) Throw in the spices
5) And the lentils, SDTs, toms and kidney beans. Maybe a bit of water if it looks a bit dry.
6) Simmer until the lentils are cooked
7) Stir in the BNS when it's all done.
8) EAT IT ALL!!!!
Actually don't, its even better the next day.
Butternut Squash Korma
1 BNS
1 onion
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds (or cumin seeds)
1 tsp Nigella seed (I'm pretty sure this is what makes it taste amazing)
50g grated fresh ginger
1 red chilli
1 tsp ground corriander
75g chopped dates
2 tbsp dessicated coconut (Or maybe it's this that makes it tasty)
2 tsp soft brown sugar (Oh no wait. Yeah it's the sugar that I like)
1 tin coconut cream
1) Chop'n'roast the BNS. Give it a 20 min head start.
2) Chop'n'fry the onion (and maybe some other veg: peppers, mushrooms, courgette etc.)
3) Chuck in all the spices
4) And the sweet stuff
5) Give it a few mins then add the coconut cream.
6) Add the BNS and maybe a bit of water to make it a bit saucier.
7) EAT IT ALL!!!!!
Goes super well with normal curry stuff (rice, peshwari naans, poppadoms etc.)
Butternut Squash Casserole
1 BNS
2 large onions
2 tsp sage
3 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp flour
175ml white wine
1 can butterbeans
400ml veg stock
2 tbsp tomato paste
for the dumplings:
200g self raising flour
100g veg suet
2tsp mixed herbs
8 tbsp cold water
1) You know the drill. Chunk the onions and roast them at the same time too. This time the BNS doesn't have to be fully cooked as it will be going back in. So maybe only roast for 20 mins.
2) Make the dumplings by mixing everything together and making little balls.
3) When the BNS and onions are roasted put them in a casserole dish. coat them in the flour.
4) Then mix in everything else. You could add more veg here too. maybe carrots, peas, potatoes...whaaaaat....
5) Arrange the little dumplings on top. Aww.
6) Plop a lid on and stick back in the oven for a bit. Maybes 15-20 mins.
7) EAT IT ALL!!!! No seriously. I made this for the first time the other day and was super impressed. Am going to make it again next week. nyom.
Hope you enjoy them!
1) Adapted from Happy days with the naked chef
2) Adapted from Rick Steins India
3) Adapted from Cook Vegetarian- October 2014
Mirrors from Nicola Rowlands
I've been following Nicola Rowlands' blog for a few months now because she makes really cool stuff (what better reason to follow a blog?). I saw that she had these super cute pocket mirrors for sale and grabbed some! They're adorable and motivational! Hehe.
Cute huh? I've started buying things from Etsy because it's a great way to buy unique local(ish) handmade things from tiny businesses. I.e you get cool stuff and you get to feel good about it too.
xxx
pesto pasta
So, I'm veganing it up nowadays and it's super fun. It's giving me a reason to try new things and I like it! I've seen a lot of funky vegan recipes in the internet but they often contain things that I've never heard of before, in particular 'nutritional yeast'. It sounds crazy and gross but it's actually kinda cool. It has a cheesy taste without all of the fat! Sweet. I had a look in town for some but I couldn't find any. However, We went on an adventure at the weekend and found a really cool shop called The Honey Tree and they had some. Yay! So this is my first recipe using it. I think it's resulted in the best pesto I've ever made.
- Pasta
- Courgette
- Green Pepper
- Some frozen spinach
- 2 cups basil
- 1/2 cup walnuts
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 garlic cloves
- 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
- Salt and pepper
1) Boil the pasta
2) Fry the courgette, pepper and spinach
3) Whiz the rest in a blender to make the pesto
4) When everything is cooked, mix it all together.
Eat it aaaaaaaallllll! hehehe!
xxx
Vegan coconut cake
Coconut cake is my fave! And It's super easy to make too.
- 100g vegan marg
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup coconut milk
- 2 cups desiccated coconut
- 2 cups self raising flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp corn starch or arrow root mixed with 2 tbsp water
1) Melt the marg, sugar and milk in a pan
2) Mix in the rest!
3) Bake at gas 5/ 190 degrees C for 30-60 mins
It's done when you poke it with a knife and it comes out clean.
Nom nom nom nom nom.
xxx
Macaroons
Macaroons are easy, yum and gluten free.
Ingredients:
- 3 egg whites
- 310g caster sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp cornflour
- 3 cups desiccated coconut
- 50-100g chocolate
1) Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form
2) Add the sugar, beating constantly until thick and glossy
3) Fold in the rest of the ingredients
4) drop tablespoons of the mix onto lined baking trays and bake at 160 degrees (315F/ gas2 2-3) for 20 mins.
5) Allow to cool and then melt some chocolate.
6) Dip and drizzle away.
7) Eat all in one go because they're super yum and mainly air. I guess you could share them if you want.
Nexus cover
I got a nexus for Christmas! (Second hand of course.) So naturally I had to make a cover for it. Good job too as I've been hoarding a whole load of Sewing Cafe fabric for a while and have had no idea what to do with it. Anyway, I made this.
-1 fat quater of pretty fabric
- 20 cm strip of felt
- 1m bias tape or ribbon
1) Cut a 16.5 x 50cm strip from both your pretty fabric and your felt
2) Iron and sew your bias tape in half length ways so you get a long ribbon.
3) Place your fabric right sides together with the ribbon in between them. A little bit should poke through the top edge.
4) Sew most of the way around, leaving a gap big enough to turn it the right way around.
5) Turn the right way out and iron!
6) Get your nexus and fold the fabric so that it covers it. Sew up the edges (I had to hand stitch this as it was a bit thick for my machine). Iron again!
Done!
Hankies
1) Gather supplies: fabric, ruler, rotary cutter, scissors, contrasting thread.
2) Cut squares the size that you want your hankie to be. I cut a fat quarter into 4.
3) Sew around the edge of the square with a pretty stitch. I chose a scallop.
4) Trim as close to the stitching as you dare!
5) Repeat and admire your lovely new hankies.
They make me smile every time I get one out of my pocket and they're better for the environment too! huzzah!
xxx
The printed square
1) The Printed Square by Nicky Albrechtsen: A book full of pictures of vintage handkerchiefs
2) This "Light Ditsy" print by Caroline Gardener: I seem to want everything I own to be covered in this.
Now, I'm no stranger to books (see my living room):
But it's not very often that I pick up a book in an actual bookshop and can't bear to put it back on the shelf. I'd normally at least wait a bit and see if I can buy it second hand. but I just could. not. put. it. down! It's like someone crawled into my brain and made a book especially for me of something I didn't even know I liked!
Just look how pretty it is! Oh man! And every page is like that! There are a few pages at the beginning about the history of hankies but all the rest are just beautiful picture after beautiful picture. Yay!
Anyway, a bit off topic but you just had to see how awesome this book is! I am super inspired to get doodling/painting/embroidering!
xxx
How to make a wedding cake
Alex and Pippa got married! For those of you who don't know them, they are they awesomest, craziest, loveliest, generousest couple in the world. Their wedding suited them absolutely perfectly. It was mental and amazing and so. much. fun. And to top it all off, they let me make their wedding cake! Here's how I did it:
1) I borrowed 3 cake tins: 11", 9" and 7".
2) I filled them with my go to fruit cake mix. 2x, 1.5x and 1x mix respectively. I baked them FOREVER and then had my mum and dad looked after them and fed them with 1tsp brandy every week for the next month.
3) When I came back home a month later it was time to decorate! First I levelled them off to the same height. I made a big cardboard loop which was as high as I wanted the cake to be, then took a knife and levelled them off to that height.
4) I then flipped them and put them onto cake boards. For the small layers, make sure that the board is exactly (or as near as you can get) the same size as the cake so that it doesn't show when you stack them.
5) Coat the cakes with runny, sieved, apricot jam. The sieving part is very important! Otherwise you get lumpy icing! Just put a few tbsp of jam into a little bowl, microwave for a few seconds and pour it through a sieve into another bowl.
6) Now comes the tricky part: covering the cake with marzipan and fondant! eek! I was super scared of doing this bit so I did some research and found this thing called THE MAT. It's basically two massive sheets of plastic that you roll your icing between and makes it easier to pick up and move around. whilst it didn't work perfectly (the icing would often stretch out into a funny shape when I was peeling the back layer off, or it would stick to the mat a bit and ruin the smoothness) it did help a lot! Maybe it just needed some more conditioning? It was the first time I'd ever used it, so maybe that was it? Anyway, I rolled it out, plopped it on, trimmed it and smoothed it x6. It was hard work. My back and abs caned the next day!
7) I gave the icing a chance to harden over night and then piped the decoration on! Alex and Pippa had a crazy hat themed wedding so I doodled crazy hats all over the cake. I then realised that piped writing looked much nicer that hats so I filled in all the gaps with their names. I just used a piping bag and royal icing made up like it says on the box. Defo do a practise run before you pipe onto the cake!!!
8) Then I put plastic dowels into the cake to support the upper layers. Learn how to do that here.
9) Then for the really nerve-wracking part: transporting and assembling! My amazing daddy bought me some proper cake boxes and drove me all the way to Cambridge so that I could sit in the back making sure that they didn't slide anywhere and get crushed. fortunately the cakes are super heavy so it wasn't really a problem. then I just stacked them up! I used a knife to help me get my fingers under the boards- they're very hard to lift otherwise. I made sure that all the good bits were at the front and any mistakes were at the back. Pin some ribbon around the base of each cake and bob's your uncle! I actually made the ribbon myself from some red fabric so that it was exactly the width I wanted it.
I also made some other cakes (above) as did other people (below) nyom nyom nyom.
All in all a very cakey day! (btw, all of this cake was gone in about ten minutes of bringing knives out to cut it with!)
xxx
p.s. sorry about the terrible photos, I took them all with my phone not my massive camera.
p.p.s. It looks like my mum is growing out of the cake in one of the pictures! hehe!
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