Yeo Valley Help Plant A Better Future Offer

BACK

Read More......

    Moon Festival

The moulds for these biscuits were rooted out of an old fashioned rack of dusty wooden hand carved moulds in a kitchen ware shop selling pots and pans opposite the art deco Central Market, in Kuala Lumpur. Unfortunately since it was then not the time of year to be making these biscuits there were no pig-shaped moulds to be had. It seems that piggy biscuits rank with Moon Cakes, as the most iconic fare of the Moon Festival. However these are beautifully ornate and skillfully crafted.

I like the idea that although these moulds are made to general, formulaic motifs, if you were to compare moulds of a single motif you will see that they differ where each craftsman has his own distinct flourish and also amongst those made by the same craftsman there is a difference in execution. Then there is the fact that to get the biscuit dough out of a mould you have to give it a fair number of hard whacks so the biscuits come out a little distorted, with different expressions of surprise on their faces (which only deepens when they realise their purpose is to be eaten)! This seems to make them animate, living entities, and goes a little way to describe the deep felt fondness for these quaint little confections.

Moon festival biscuits are made from the dough used to wrap baked mooncakes. I followed the Baked Mini Mooncakes recipe posted on the Do What I Like blog by Florence. A little word of advice, DO resist the temptation to eat these biscuits straight out of the oven. They only moisten and take on their authentic consistency three days after baking, any earlier and you will never find out what the real thing is supposed to taste like!

Read More......

   Figgy Jam

This is my first attempt at making jam. The figs and rhubarb are from the garden, hence my sudden inclination to dabble in domestic husbandry, either that or it is mUddle age setting in!

I made this on a whim so the recipe is my own concoction. I therefore can’t give any assurances whether it will have successfully preserved the fruit. My idea is to give away the surplus with instructions to consume it within a couple of weeks or else risk getting belly-wark and dying a horrible death of medieval contortions.

Recipe:

• 1 part figs
• 1 part golden granulated sugar
• ½ part rhubarb
• peelings from several apples (having vague notions that in order for jam to set you need pectin and not sure whether figs or rhubarb contained any)
• juice of lemon

Combine all ingredients and stir continuously over a medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved and the figs and rhubarb have almost entirely disintegrated. Pick out the apple peelings with a fork. Turn up the heat and boil up to jam consistency – test by putting a teaspoonful on a dish that has been chilled in the fridge. If it is sticky like jam then it probably is jam. Spoon carefully into recycled jars that have previously been thoroughly washed, sterilised in boiling water and completely dried. Fill the jars right to the top, leaving no room for air to be trapped in the necks. Screw down the lids whilst the jam is still hot. Clean any spilt jam from around the lid.

BACK

Read More......

   I <3 Double Seed Stitch

To date, I’ve learnt the most about knitting by working through ‘Knitting for Dummies’ by Pam Allen. Though its down-home, no-frills layout is a little bit head scarf & house coat, it delivers clear, concise, easy-to-follow instructions so here I must give the manual its due credit.

            ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

The manual's flat-toned, grey image of a swatch of double seed stitch does nothing to impart the deep, tactile texture created by the offset double-repeat plain and purl stitches of this decorative pattern that pile up to form a quaint, coded fabric of integral, iconic heart-shaped bumps. True to its pragmatic sublimity the manual makes much of the fact that the fabric, “worked in a balanced manner” is “stable” and therefore lays flat with no inclination to curl at the edges.

            ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

To knit this scarf I used:

6 x 50g balls Jaeger Extra Fine Merino Chunky, shade 028 Teal
4.5mm needles

To knit in double seed stitch:

Cast on (or any multiple of 4 stitches, plus 2).
Rows 1 and 4: *k1, p1; rep from * to end of row (end k1).
Rows 2 and 3: *p1, k1; rep* to end of row (end p1).
Repeat rows 1-4 until you have a scarf of your required length.

BACK

Read More......

Party Invitation

Homemade chicken* pie, with a dollop of creamy mash, a heap of freshly shelled peas glistening under a knob of melting butter, and a lashing of onion gravy is the perfect pukka posh nosh. Once the melt-in-the-mouth , golden, flakey coffin of a crust of this great, British contrivance is breached and the mystery of the succulent, voluptuous roast chicken, mushroom and peppery, parsley flecked bechamel filling revealed your mates will “LOVE IT” and won’t fail to polish it off.

*"Ladies and Gentlemen — I fear that what I am going to say will spoil your appetites; but the truth is beautiful at all times…”.
There is plenty of information out there to help you decide where to source your chicken from. The plight of Ginger, Edwina, Fowler, Rocky Rhodes, et al cooped up on the nefarious Tweedys' battery farm in Aardman Animation's film 'Chicken Run' didn't even come near to the dastardly intensive farming methods implemented for the mass rearing of chickens. As you are all probably aware these can be horribly cruel and the methods of slaughtering chickens in any number can be excessively distressing to the birds. The information is out there, take heed and be it on your head the choice you decide to make. Bottom line, are we that economically hard pressed that we can't budget for paying a little bit extra for more humanely farmed chickens?

Addendum: I finally posted an instructable on how to make this chicken pie: Home Sweet Homemade Chicken Pie

BACK

Read More......

   Elementary exercise in cyberspace…a postcard from    the Z Axis.

The Fake-Faux Fakesters are going for a stroll through Kenneth Fejer's pixellated Isocity. This is no ordinary walk in the space-time continuum, it is their first foray into the electronic frontier: the white noise of constellated data hubs playing on their faces & gluon rushing through their hair.

Wish you were here...

Click here to join the Fakesters on their adventure in (near)isometric projection. Can you find them?

BACK

Read More......

To Oz and beyond…introducing the prototype Fab-Brick.

Though popularly perceived as an object best suited for throwing at things with the express aim of smashing them, the prosaic nature of the brick belies its infinite potential to be used as a component to build things more extraordinary than the proverbial shithouse.

The Fab-Brick is essentially a hand-sewn, upholstered brick form that can be configured and reconfigured to create useful objects to furnish the changing needs of day-to-day living (watch this space). A useful addition to the clutter of any lived-in home; not just for my fellow friends of Dorothy, but for their friends too…
Click here to view my Instructable on how to make your very own Fab-Brick.

A big "thank you" to the peeps from the European Street Team blog for mentioning my Fab-Brick in their Etsy SewUseful post.

BACK

Read More......

   Seed Stitch Pom-Pom Scarf

Aside from the fact that the publication of ‘ Stitch ‘N Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook’ and a plethora of spin off manuals allows you, should you simply want to try your hand at knitting, to neatly by-pass any hoary, matriarchal rite of passage preparing young girls for womanhood and marriage, you can now, with a knitting project in your hands, watch much as telly as you like, GUILT-FREE.

To knit this scarf I used:

• 2 x 50g balls Jaeger Baby Merino DK shade 226 - Ocean
• 2 x 50g balls Jaeger Baby Merino DK shade 232 - Olive
• 2 x 50g balls Jaeger Baby Merino DK shade 230 - Khaki
• 1 x 50g ball Debbie Bliss Merino DK, colour 225503 - Gold

To knit in Seed Stitch:
Cast on 48 stitches(or any even number of stitches)
Row 1:*k1, p1; rep from *
Row2: *p1, k1 rep from *
Repeat Rows 1 and 2. I knitted the scarf to wrap twice around a person's neck and terminate immediatley in two neat pom-poms.

BACK

Read More......

seedstich scarf thumb

Read More......

Melon Bubble Tea

A real treat is sitting at a worn formica table in Jen Café on Newport Place, in London's Chinatown listening to the clatter of mahjong tiles and muffled shouts in Cantonese wafting in from the windows above the street, a bubble tea in front of me slowly sweating beads of condensation and sharing a plate of vegetable jiaozi freshly made by the woman sitting in the window. The really accomplished trick is to pick up a dumpling with chopsticks, dunk it in the soy-vinegar dipping sauce and transport it to your mouth without ripping the skin of the dumpling and emptying its contents down your front. I just love how the big gloopy, amoeboid, tapioca bubble tea pearls shoot up the oversized straw and eddy around your tonsils before you can manoeuvre them into position to be chewed and swallowed. And then, how they seem to reconstitute themselves and gloop down your oesophagus much like gobs of chewing gum hastily gulped down the hatch to avoid school detention; only you can swallow these without fear or regret, confident in the knowledge that they won't wrap around your ribcage and form a sticky web entangling your innards.

Ingredients:

• Half a small watermelon, juiced
• Half a cantaloupe melon, juiced
• A cup of green tea
• Unsweetened soya milk
• Honey
• Black tea flavoured bubble tea pearls

Mix the cup of green tea with the cantaloupe melon juice. Sweeten with honey. This layer goes at the bottom of the glass so it is good to sweeten this as much as possible without completely overpowering the cantaloupe melon flavour. This acts as counterpoint to the more fresh, slightly vegetable tasting watermelon juice. Spoon the cantaloupe juice mix to quarter fill a couple of glasses. Put the glasses into the freezer until the juice freezes solid (approximately 2 hours).

Divide the watermelon juice between two bowls. Add a couple of splashes of soya milk to one of the bowls. Add the soya milk carefully as you don't want to overpower the watermelon flavour. Sweeten to taste with honey. Place the watermelon / soya milk mix in the refrigerator to chill, place the unadulterated watermelon juice in the freezer.

After two hours prepare the bubble tea pearls following the instructions on the packet. Strain them from the boiling water in the saucepan and run them under cold water to cool them down to room temperature. Take the glasses containing the frozen cantaloupe mix and the bowl containing the unadulterated watermelon juice out of the freezer. Crush up the frozen watermelon juice with a fork and spoon a layer to each glass. Add a heaped spoonful of bubble tea pearls into each glass. Take the watermelon / soya milk mix and fill the glasses to the top. Pop in an oversized bubble tea straw and enjoy.

BACK

Read More......

   Stripey Winter Throat Warmer

I learnt to knit garter stitch as a Brownie. We knitted squares to be sewn into a blanket for a charitable cause. Whoa Louisa May Alcott! Hold those bucolic thoughts of benevolent thrift! This was Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, 1979.

The resulting blanket was truly UGLY as only a project of mean, acrylic yarn remnants garnered from the bottom of knitting baskets at the end of that decade could be: a dropped-stitch riddled patchwork of burnt orange, salmon, bottle green and mustard interspersed with odd squares in new born baby pastels (give or take an occasional crumb of peanut butter and syrup sandwich – a Brownie staple). It was probably palmed off on somebody’s underpaid, disenfranchised maid servant as we upstart, sanctimonious six year olds were congratulated on our magnanimous act of altruism and presented with much coveted knitter interest badges to sew onto our badge sashes.

Years later, under duress, I knitted a toy in garter stitch for a Home Economics class project. I decided on knitting a beige Pink Panther to co-ordinate with the 80’s knotty pine ceiling & mute green walls of my bedroom; because as a teenager mired in white, apartheid South Africa, I exercised my choice to fully test the ambit of straight-laced conventionalism with impassive indifference because there was no access to any promise of anything better.

More years later my third ever attempt at knitting: I have just completed this winter throat warmer as a harbinger of striped deckchair days and the promise of that elusive sun-drenched picnic in St James's park being hustled by the Canada geese for (peanut butter and syrup) sandwich crusts.

To knit this scarf I used:

• 3.5mm needles rather than the recommended 4mm


• 2x 50g balls Debbie Bliss merino dk red 225700


• 2x 50g balls Debbie Bliss merino dk blue 225203


• 1x 50g balls Debbie Bliss merino dk grey 225104


• 1x 50g ball Debbie Bliss merino dk white 225100

I sewed the corsages to badge pins so that they could be removed or positioned where I liked once I had put the scarf on and adjusted it in the mirror. They are also very convenient for disguising the odd unsightly twisted, picked-up dropped stitch or any other unintentional loop, split stitch, hole, knot or irregularity.

BACK

Read More......