Going Buggy: WIN a complete set of PROMARKERS

Going Buggy: WIN a complete set of PROMARKERS

Crafters - win a set of Promarkers!

Having only a few days ago decided I'd been neglecting the "Onions" side of the blog in favour of the "Paper" and promising myself to redress the balance, I find that I jusy HAVE to tell you about the wonderful crafty giveaway you can find over at Going Buggy

Enfys has got together with Letraset to give away a whole set of promarkers, one of every colour in the range. That's 148 pens! .......... sorry, I had to stop there for a moment to wipe the drool off my keyboard!

To find out how to enter this giveaway, which is open worldwide and closes on November 18th, pop over to Going Buggy  and follow the instructions.

My new Tagine and how I used it.

I've always wanted to own a tagine. I know I can make fragrant, spicy stews without one, and frequently do (I'm typing this with great wafts of the aroma of a chickpea and butternut squash curry floating in from the kitchen), but I love my kitchen bits and pieces and really, really wanted a tagine!

A few years ago I bought an electric tagine, but is was MASSIVE. Not only was it too big to fit in any of my kitchen cupboards, so it ended up living out its short life on the bedroom floor, but it was far too big to cook a meal for just the two of us or even four or six when we had visitors. To fill it enough to stop things drying out would have needed at least eight generous portions. Within a few short weeks it was rehomed - I hope the new owners were happier with it.

Then last month I won a £30 Groupon voucher. I went to the website, planning to treat myself to a facial, and the first thing I spotted was a special offer on tagines. They had a nice small 1-litre one, suitable to use on an open gas flame, for just under £30. Perfect! So now I am the owner of a rather lovely tagine.

For its first airing, I made use of part of another prize, a tin of Bart Spices Ras-el-Hanout and made the recipe off the side of the tin, a lamb tagine with baby plum tomatoes. It seemed rather strange using a shallow ceramic dish on the hob, rather like cooking on a plate, but once the high pointed lid was in place to trap and condense the steam, the dish needed very little stirring which meant the tomatoes kept their shape and the finished dish looked really attractive because of this.

Because we like loads of veg with our meals, I also made a seven-vegetable stew, as taught to me by a Senegalese friend at university many years ago

And finally I served the whole thing with couscous.

I'm delighted with my new toy and I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot more of it on Onions and Paper in the future.

Beetroot Tarte Tatin

Maybe you've noticed that despite being a blog about cooking and crafting, I've not written much about cooking recently. In fact the blog's becoming all Paper and no Onions.

I think that's because I'm so bad at food photography. It takes me so long to produce a half-decent photo that food has gone cold and spoiled, or we've got too hungry and eaten it, before I have anything worth sharing. However, I made this dish using home grown beetroot, which meant that my husband also wanted to write about it over at Mark's Veg Plot. So he was taking photos anyway which meant I could scrounge some!

We  never watch reality shows, which leaves us with very little to watch on TV at weekends. We usually end up channel hopping to find a decent cookery show or leaving the TV off  completely. So last weekend I flicked the remote until I landed on a rerun of one of Hugh Fearney-Whittingstall's River Cottage programmes.

We've watched them  all many times before, and have all the accompanying recipe books (Note to family - his latest book "Three Ingredients is top of my current wishlist). The two books "Everyday" and "Veg Everyday" are my most well-thumbed books of recent years, with several dished from them having become firm favourites.

But as we watched this particular programme, one dish we'd never noticed before caught our attention - Beetroot Tarte Tatin. Mark had just harvested a huge crop of tiny beetroot and there was half a pack of ready made (low fat, alas, I'm on a permanent diet) puff pastry in the fridge. So I was delighted to thumb through Veg Everyday and find the recipe on page 48, and even more delighted that I had all the ingredients to hand.

The beetroot is put into a small frying pan with oil, butter, sugar (as I'm diabetic, I substituted agave nectar) and vinegar. Hugh uses cider vinegar but I didn't have any so I used balsamic instead. With hindsight, maybe a splash of the damson vinegar that's hanging round the back of the cupboard would have worked really well in this. Tightly covered in foil, it goes in the oven until the beetroot is cooked.

A bit of careful-ish rearranging  of the beetroot is needed (at this point I wished I'd used a few more as they shrank a bit during cooking) then the pan is topped with the puff pastry and put back in the oven to cook. The cooked tatin is inverted onto a plate and served with a vinagrette made with shallots and parsley. Again, I replaced the cider vinegar with balsamic and it made a delicious dressing.

It would have made a lovely starter, especially topped  with feta cheese as suggested in the book, but we had it as a side dish with some good pork sausages, potatoes and runner beans fresh from the garden 

A delicious dish we'll definitely be repeating - and I think my version looks  every bit as tasty as the one in the book

Less is More #90 - Autumn

This week it's a Theme challenge at Less is  More - one of my favourite themes, Autumn. I love Autumn colours - I wear them, decorate my house in them and love crafting  with them. Here is my Autumn themed card.

The embossing powder I used for the leaves is a blended one called "Tiger" -  it's a mixture of russety browns and deep olive greens that is perfect for Autumn leaves. However I think if I ever met a tiger that colour I would be terrified! (Disclaimer - If I ever met a tiger of any colour I would be terrified, unless there was a tiger-proof barrier between me and it. But if it was this colour I would be *more* terrified.)

It doesn't really show on the photo but I curled the leaves to give them a more natural Autumn look and attached them with different amounts of gel glue to conserve the curl.

Unusually for me and CAS cards, I got the effect I wanted first time, so I'm afraid I have no bloopers to share with you this week!

A rainbow of butterflies

I always find the "One layer" challenges at Less is More particularly, well, challenging. You have no idea just how full my waste paper basket is now with failed designs and abandoned ideas. Or maybe yours is the same?

This week it's Challenge #89, One Layer, with the theme WINGS which is also this month's theme at The Cupboard Trilogy.

First of all I did a Christmas card with an angel design, but it ended up TOO CAS, really just plain boring. so I added a bit of bling and it wasn't CAS any more yet still had something lacking so I did a bit of inking and got a huge smudge in the wrong place..... well. you know the story.

Next I stamped some Chinese characters then embossed a gold dragonfly over them. In  my head, it looked simple and striking. In real life it looked a mess. I've cannibalised the image and will use it on a future card.

Next up, a bit of reverse masking, a butterfly cut out inked through then stamped through. Which would have been fine if I hadn't completely messed up the stamping.

I usually like to share my failures but I'm afraid I lost my temper a bit with these particular ones and all I would be able to share is a photo of an overflowing waste paper basket.

So that was yesterday afternoon wasted. I started again this morning with a butterfly, from a Paper Artsy set, which I stamped in rainbow colours up the side of the card

 

Then I decided it looked insipid, so I filled in some of the outlines on the butterfly design (I really should have chosen a stamp with more solid areas)

Better, but still not quite there, so finally I cut around the edge of the butterflies

At last! A card  I am happy with. I am submitting this to

Less is More #89 - Wings

The Cupboard Trilogy #4 - Things With Wings

 

Do you know, when I fill in craft magazine surveys and they ask about your level of skill, I usually tick "intermediate". But when it comes to making things Clean and Simple, especially when you only have one layer and no chance to hide your mistakes, I think I'll always be in the "absolute beginner" category. But it's fun learning!

It's Autumn

.. at least it is here in the Northern Hemisphere, and here in Fleet, not far from London, it is already cold, wet and miserable (OK, my UK friends will remind me that it has been cold, wet and miserable for most of the year) and the leaves  on the trees are starting to change colour.

On a dry, crisp day, Autumn canbe my favourite time of year. I love kicking up piles of fallen leaves, searching for sweet chestnuts and starting to plan the Christmas baking. But on a day like today, I'd rather stay indoors crafting!

My Autumn themed card today is my entry to two challenges:

CAS-ology #14 - Leaf

 Addicted to Stamps and More! CAS challenge #3