christmas catering

I'd been asked to do a spot of catering for a christmas party last, here's some of what I came up with.

Orange caramelised carrots and roasted beetroot

Courgette and halloumi involtini with ginger&garlic

Cherry tomatoes stuffed with Moroccan cous cous

Ginger biscuits dipped in cardamon & orange chocolate

Snow!

thanks for the pictures dasiy

Mini catering for Urban Igloo

To celebrate the opening of Urban Igloo- Portobello's newest (and perhaps daintiest) retail addition, I was asked to make some tasty snacks for occasion.

The shop looked immaculate and well done to Roseanne, Ali, Ellie and Ollie for hosting such a lovely opening night we'll look forward to many more!

Setting up

Aubergine and courgette involtini

Parmesan and Poppy seed biscuits

Vegetable Pots

when it's cold out side...

..get cooking. I had a lovely saturday cosy and warm in my kitchen making mincemeat. Looking forward to December when I can legitimately crack open the mulled wine and start on mince pies making and eating.

ageing apple faces

Hilary and I have been having a lovely time in Dundee screen printing, eating delicious, french toast and carving portraits of our selves into apples- by the end of the week we should be able to tell how we'll look when we're old and wrinkly!

Greetings!

Making home brew

It's a messy process.

Cat Tongues from Berlin.

Mahala brought these back for me from her travels.

SUPERcook

Look at these treats that I found outside a charity shop bin! What a treasure trove.

I can't wait to get stuck into some of these recipes.

The Science of Cake

An interesting article in the Guardian.

home-grown treats

Look what little gems I got home to find in the garden today- 3 blueberries and a tiny radish. Small but perfectly formed and I can take no credit for growing them- all my mum's hard work, but she said the blueberries are for me- yum yum.

tasty france

I just got back from a fantastic week long family holiday in the south of France, lots and lots of fun, and i realise I seem to of take mostly pictures of food - and mostly on other peoples cameras- I'll add more when I've gathered them up. Here's a wee selection......


Violette Mustard- comes with the popes' blessing.
There were loads of fruit trees and brambles and berries growing in the country side where we stayed, great for foraging- loads of plums and apples and nuts and berries and wild herbs and sunflowers everywhere it was brilliant. I'm such a muncher. Here's a wee pudding we made out of found treats.

Mmmm 70's food chic

Good luck to Hilary who has been working flat out for the past two weeks on a recipe book for Harvest Fest in Glasgow this weekend, Hope you can get some sleep and can't wait to see the results :)

What a monster!

Look at this beast which arrived in a punnet of strawberries at work the other day - so huge I just had to share it.

Awesome fruit discovery in Dundee!

I found out tonight in Dundee, at Magdalen Green my local park, there are cherry trees! So many and all bearing delicious delicious fruit. Rob, Jane and I went out picking them and made a cherry and apple pie afterwards. Unfortunately we didn't manage to get any photos but I'll leave you with the recipe:

For the pastry
8 oz plain white flour
4 oz butter
some water and a pinch of salt

700g fresh cherries
1 apple, finely chopped into slices.
cinamon
3 tablespoons of demerara sugar

a little egg of milk to glaze the pastry.

Start by rubbing the butter into the flour until mixed through. Then add a drop of water and knead into a dough.
Line your pie dish with the pastry and blind bake for about 7-10 minutes. You should also have a little pastry left over for the top.

De-seed the cherries (this took quite a while, thanks Rob) and boil them down with some sugar in an cast-iron or heavy based pan for quite a while until it's all nice and runny and mushy.

Slide the apple and lay out on the base of the pastry, sprinkle with a bit of sugar and top with the cherry mush. Cut the remaining pastry into strips and weave over the top of the pie.

Bake for 30 mins, serve with ice cream.

twEATS competition and NVA's Harvest Festival coming soon!

Central Station announced last week that they'd be holding a number of events as part of NVA's Harvest festival, this August.



One of the events, twEATs is going to be a live event where a chef is going to be revealing a recipe, step by step on Twitter with people in their homes following the instructions.

There's also going to be a Jam Wall where jam-makers will be invited to bring along jars of their jams and enter them into a 3d installation, inspired by pantone charts. Reminds me of Mahala's work in final year...



Central Station is also putting together a recipe book/ newspaper/ publication with recipes to encourage people to cook with locally grown produce. They launched a competition calling artists, foodies and creatives and submit illustrated recipes to be features in the publication. I've been working on two recipes, one wasn't quite enough as I really enjoy making instructions!

H x

Eat-Ins

"An Eat-In is a group of people gathering in public in order to share a home-cooked meal. They originated in the USA see www.eat-ins.org

They have been adopted by the YFM as a great tool for positive statements about food in our lives. You can hold one to bring your community together or to highlight a specific issue by holding your Eat-in somewhere significant, like a supermarket car park!

Eat-Ins are organised by everyday people. The first Eat-In took place in San Francisco on September 1 as part of Slow Food Nation 2008. Since then, people who participated in or were inspired by the event have begun bringing their communities together to Eat-In.

The first YFM UK Eat-In was held in Hyde Park on June 7th 2009."


Text taken from Youth Food Movement

Project from Brite Collective and Eating is Art- EAT MY STORY

A project about sharing stories and memories through food and cooking...









The rules were as follows:

"Share a short story with the group (150 words or less).
Pick and bring pizza ingredients to the event that will tell you story.
Come to Via Tribunali the day of the event. Pick someone else's story at random.
Interpret that person's story on the pizza using their ingredients (adding or subtracting as necessary)...lotsa room for creativity here.
Cook your creation to perfection at 1000 degrees F in Via Tribunali's wood fired oven.
Share your the story and pizza with group...drink vino...converse...revel...enjoy."

Nice concept.

Brite Collective is based in Seattle and they get together to organise community projects and social events.

good packaging

I've been meaning to take pictures of these for a while, the something about them that made me smile.

Yuck n Yum- zine launch

As you'll know from previous posts, Gayle from Yuck n Yum zine asked us to make a few pies for their summer issue launch. It was a fun night, fab music from Ben (Jack Your Body) Robinson, really great weather (perfect to be sitting out on the roof terrace at the HMC!) and a crowd who all liked pie!


Steven Crichton has made this awesome video of the night- nice dancing Gayle!

How does your garden grow?

.....hopefully full of yuck and yum pies.

Pie roulette- eating for the indecisive

Here's some pictures from Friday's very sunny Dundonian Y'n'Y launch- before it all got munched. Thanks to everyone who could make it along, and to Gayle et al and the Hannah Maclure centre for having us.

Mention from the Skinny

Hey folks, there's a review of the Big Top Jamboree online on the Skinny magazine, with a special mention of our mini pies!

Boycott the bottle

Just announced- Yucky and yummy pie night.

DIY Pie is having a come back. Gayle from Yuck'n'Yum has invited Hilary and I to make some edibles for their summer Zine launch party on Friday the 18th of June. Things will be kicking off about 6pm at the Hannah Maclure Centre on the top floor of Abertay Student Union, Dundee. Hope to see you there.

Who's afraid of colour?

Today was so gray, dull and damp in Edinburgh but I need some colour to cheer me up. I'm trying to find a food safe vanish to make this usable, but for the moment I'm just enjoying the the glow.