Less is More challenge - Use a Flourish

This is my first attempt at joining in with the "Less is More" challenge. The task this week is to create a one layer card and use a flourish.

It sounds easy, but I'm not used to working directly on to my card and I hadn't realised how often I cover things up, cut them differently or just change my plan as I go along to cover up mistakes. Working directly onto the card, it absolutely has to be right first time, and my wastepaper basket is now testament to how tricky that can be. But I was delighted with the elegant simplicity of my finished card, so I will definitely be joining the challenge again. Here is my card

I used masking tape to make a rectangle on the card and sponged yellow, ochre and brown ink into it to create a gradient. The flourish is  from an old Hot Off The Press set of stamps, and the birthday greeting from a grab bag I bought from the USA years ago. I finished the card off by inking the edges in brown and sponging yellow inside to show through the cut-out corners.

Why I don't buy ready meals

.... well, I usually don't buy ready meals - but at the moment there is a competition on some packs so I had to buy one in order to be able to tell Grape Vine readers all about it (and to enter for myself). So today's lunch was some sort of salmon and broccoli thing with potato wedges.

It cost £2.25, plus the cost of having the oven on at a very high temperature for 45 minutes (I don't have a microwave). Bearing in mind that this is a fairly small plate, not a full sized dinner plate, does it look worth it?

At first I thought they  had forgotten to include any salmon, so I fished (Ha! see what I did there?) around in it for a while and managed to separate out the flakes of fish. It came to about a dessertspoonful. Probably equivalent to about a tenth of the amount in an individual sized fresh salmon portion from a supermarket. You can see the salmon at the top  of the photo.

As for taste, well I have to confess it was absolutely delicious. But as a quick lunch to keep me going on a busy day, it was an absolute failure. The fruit bowl has been seriously depleted this afternoon.

Would I buy it again? NO!

Will  I be using the piece of salmon in the freezer to create my own version of it for a fraction of the cost-per-mouthful some time soon? Just try stopping me!

My first craft challenge

Although I've been a crafter for many years, and entered postal challenges, this is the first time I have entered a craft blog challenge so please be gentle with me!

The stamp I have used today is a very old one - so old that the writing has worn off,  so I can't give the manufacturer or reference number, but I bought it from America about 12 years ago, along with a dragonfly and a leaf background in the same range. The designs are very big - about 13 cm by 10 cm  -which means they are not very versatile as they always dominate anything else used with them, but despite that I love them and come back to them over and over again. As many of you will know, I am a comper and find them very useful for making hand made postcards for sending in postal competition entries!

I brayered glossy card with a Kaleidacolour pad in Birthstone, then stamped the image in black and embossed with clear powder. I added highlights to the wings with holographic glitter glue.

The finished image is matted on silver metallic card with a die cut swirl from the same card, and mounted onto a lilac pearlescent card and finished with gems.

I am entering this into the Emergency Crafters Things With Wings challenge

And because the stamp is postively ancient (goodness, it's almost a fifth as old as I am!) I'm also entering it into the  Oldie But A Goodie Anything Goes challenge

I hope I've done everything right - please can somebody tell me if I haven't!

Broad bean, feta and beetroot salad

The first broad beans of the season are beginning to appear in the shops now although ours in the garden still have a long way to go. Here is a salad that helps to make these precious beans into the star attraction of a summer meal

Cooked broad beans (I couldn't be bothered  to double pod them, and as they were young and very fresh they didn't need it, but if your beans are older or you are serving the dish for a  special occaasion, you might want to) are mixed with diced cooked beetroot and cubes of feta cheese.

Dress this with a dressing made from a tablespoon of lemon juice whisked with three of olive oil, seasoning and some chopped fresh mint. As soon as you do this, the colour of the beetroot starts to bleed into the cheeses, so the photo was taken before dressing it, with a few mint sprigs to symbolise the dressing!

I an submitting this to No Croutons Required at Tinned Tomatoes.

Tartiflette for a summer lunch

A few years ago I won a short break to Aix en Provence. One day we drove out into the surrounding countryside, towards Mont Sainte-Victoire, much loved and painted by Paul Cézanne. Apparently he painted it over 60 times, and many of the viewpoints around the mountain are dotted with artists creating their own versions of the views he loved. We stopped at a small restaurant close to one of these viewpoints, sat on the warm sunny terrace and enjoyed a delicious lunch which I now often recreate my own version of for a relaxed meal with friends.

My husband's main course was tartiflette. I've tried several recipes, some quite complicated, but the one I come back to time and time again is Mary Cadogan's recipe which I found on the Good Food website.  It is the simplest, and the most like our first experience of the dish.

On the day of our mountainside lunch, I chose the house salad, which was similar to a salade nicoise but with smoked ham and cheese added as well as the tuna and eggs. Leaving out all the protein except the eggs transforms it into a delicious accompaniment to the tartiflette.  This salad is made of cooked new potatoes and green beans, wedges of boiled egg, olives and wedges of tomato, on a bed of green salad, with a light vinaigrette dressing.

To complete the meal, some fresh, crusty bread. I like to mix the dough in the bread machine, using the standard dough from the manual but replacing half the white flour with mixed grain flour. Then I shape it into a ball and put it onto the baking tray to rise, underneath a very large greased mixing bowl. This seems to encourage the dough  to rise evenly and keep its shape.

While it is rising, I heat the oven as high as it will go and place a small bowl of water on the oven floor to create a steamy atmosphere. Once the dough is risen, I slash a cross in the top then when placing it in the oven, turn the temperature down to my chosen cooking temperature. This initial blast of extreme heat coupled with the steam seems to give a crust that is crisp rather than hard, with the dark colour I love in bread (I'm always the one who picks out the slightly burned loaf at the baker's)

I may not be able to capture the landscape of the area by painting like Cézanne, but at least I can create a meal that gives us the flavour of that lovely day out.

Turkey Risotto

Today we have a guest post from the lovely Claire, who blogs at Life, Ninja Killer Cat and Everything Else

Claire made the risotto with long grain rice for this post, but says she would use risotto rice for preference.

Serves 2-4

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil
2 skinless boneless Turkey fillets or turkey pieces
1 Red onion, cut into 8 wedges
2 red peppers, halved deseeded and sliced thickly
1 garlic clove, crushed
100g long grain rice
400g can chopped tomatoes
300ml chicken stock
4tbsp ready-made pesto ) you'll find long-life jars on the shelves or more expensive fresh pots in the chiller cabinets)

Method:

1. Heat oven to 200c/fan 180c/gas mark 6. Heat the oil in a large,shallow ovenproof pan, add the turkey and cook for 3-4 mins until golden all over. remove from the pan and set aside.




Add the turkey amd cook for 3-4 minutes until golden all over

Red onion

One red onion cut into 8 wedges

2. Add the onion and peppers and cook for 3 minutes, or until light golden

3. Tip in the garlic and fry for a min. Stir in the rice, then the tomatoes, stock and reserved turkey. Turn up the heat and bring to the boil.

Transfer to the oven to cook at 200c/fan 180c/gas mark 6 uncovered, for 20 mins.

Season to taste and drizzle over the Pesto before serving.

Thanks very much Claire. I've never thought of using pesto as a drizzle over risotto, but I'mdefinitely going to give it a whirl!















Gado Gado - an Indonesian salad

When Mark and I first got married, he was serving in the Brigade of Gurkhas, and our first posting was to Brunei, a small sultanate on the island of Borneo. Most of the island is occupied by the Indonesian state of Kalimantan, with the Malay states of Sarawak and Sabah along with Brunei making up the rest of the island. So the local food is predominantly Malaysian and Indonesian, with a lot of influence from the large Chinese population. (Disclaimer - I am totally rubbish at geography so please don't take these facts as being 100% accurate)

I was determined to start off married life by cooking fresh, wholesome meals and that meant looking for ways to cook the foods on sale in the markets rather than the limited range of imported goods sold in the NAAFI shop. The first obstacle to that was the unfamiliar smell of the markets - the first time I went into one, the smell of the fermenting salted greens caught the back of my throat and I had to rush out and be sick in the monsoon drain! But I soon got used to it - and learned which stalls to hold my breath while passing - and started to revel in treats like being able to have fresh coconut grated to order, or buy pineapples straight from the boats delivering them from up river.

But what to cook? I visited the local English-language bookshop, a small room in the offices of the newspaper, Borneo Bulletin, where I picked up a tiny book called "Art of Indonesian Cooking - the ABC's" by Agnes de Keijzer Brackman and almost 35 years later it is still one of my most-used and best-loved recipe books. (I've just noticed there is a copy available on Amazon, along with a couple of other books by her - I may be doing some shopping after I post this)

Later on, when living in Hong Kong, I became friendly with a lady called Nancy who, although American-Chinese, owned an Indonesian restaurant and employed only Indonesian cooks. She gave me lots of tips and advice that helped me to build on the recipes from my trusty book, and to adapt them to things I would be able to buy back in the UK.

So that is the background to my love of South East Asian food - now here is my own take on the classic salad, Gado-Gado. Normally this would include cubes of fried tofu and be garnished with prawn crackers instead of cashew nuts, but I left the tofu out as I was serving this with a creamy, coconutty chicken curry and felt there was already enough protein in the meal. And I  ran out of prawn crackers!

For the dressing:

2 heaped tablespoons smooth peanut butter
1 tablepsoon Ketjap Manis (thick, sweet soy sauce - if you can't find this, use Chinese soy sauce and add a teaspoon of black treacle)
½ teaspoon Sambal Oelek or dried crushed red chilli flakes
juice of 1 lime
200 ml water

heat all ingredients together, stirring constantly. As it comes close to boiling, it will appear to curdle, but just keep stirring and after a few seconds of boiling it will come together to form a smooth paste. Set aside to cool. You can make this hotter or milder, to taste, or add brown sugar or treacle to sweeten it, thin it down with more water or thicken it with more peanut butter,  or replace the water with coconut milk - it can be different every time you make it. Tamarind juice and - if you can face it- blachan are interesting additions.  And it makes a great satay sauce or dip for crudités too.

For the salad:

2 eggs, hard boiled and sliced
2 carrots, cut into batons about twice the size of a matchstick
100g green beans, cut into 5cm segments
100g Chinese leaves, cut into pieces about 3cm wide
100g beansprouts
quarter of a cucumber, cut into batons  the same size as the carrots
a large handful of watercress sprigs
toasted cashew nuts to garnish

Bring a pan of water to the boil and drop in the carrots. After 2 minutes, add the beans and after 2 more minutes the cabbage. Cook for a minute then add the beansprouts. Remove from heat as soon as it all comes back to the boil, and immediately rinse well in cold water to stop further cooking and keep the colours bright. Drain well and cool completely. Just before serving, mix in the cucumber and watercress, top with sliced eggs (and tofu if liked) and garnish with cashews or prawn crackers.