As mentioned previously, I bought some matcha tea and after a disappointing drink concoction, I though maybe it would be best to put it in a cake. After tasting it I decided that this is a flavour that needs to go with quite a lot of sugar. It is quite an acquired taste. After a bit of digging around I found a recipe by Surf & Scallop and after a bit of chatting with Claire on instagram, we decided that her Yerba Mate could be substituted with matcha tea powder. If it wasn't for instagram I wouldn't have even known that matcha exists, so despite my feelings about Instagram, it does have some benefits. One must try new things and challenge ourselves all the time.
I managed to track down some blood oranges at the local farm shop and so I thought I was in business. Setting aside saturday to make the cake, watch the royal wedding and take photos I realise first thing that I haven't got much flour. Undeterred I thought, well it's only me at home this weekend so half the ingredients should be fine. Second hurdle, I realise that my weighing scales have gone into storage. Today is not going to plan, but Ive been so depressed recently I wasn't going to let a few hurdles stop me. I needed cake to cheer me up.
I think I managed to guess the ingredient ratios ok, however, my biggest mistake was in the cooking time. It didn't occur to me that half the ingredients could mean less cooking time and so I feel that the outside is a bit harder (burnt or over cooked) than Mary Berry would allow. Having said that I really like the slight crisp to the outside with the soft green sponge inside. I don't know why, but I can never get the icing glaze right. I made a really pretty one with the blood orange juice, it was a lovely pink but as I poured it over, it just disappeared. Perhaps it was too thin. I tried again with matcha powder added to the icing sugar and this time ensured the consistency was a bit thicker.
Yes I've also packed away all my cake stand, so a bit of improv was called for here too, in the end I gave up and just put it on a plate. Also the sliced blood orange on the top just looked made it look like some weird pizza, so I switched it around for flowers from the garden. I thought that the orange slices maybe would seep into the cake, giving it an extra tang, but it just didn't work visually. There is also a bit of grated white chocolate sprinkled for extra sweetness, I was playing with ideas, and again, the grated chocolate just didn't look amazing. My decorating skills need work. Because the ingredients were reduced by half, the cake isn't as tall as it should be, so it isn't the perfect photo star, my dilemma being that a huge glamorous cake is a bit much for one person, or even two, so until I have a few guests this size will have to do. It gives me a chance to practise if nothing else.
I'm considering getting some mini bundt tins as I think that will probably be a better idea when I'm only cooking for one or two.
The taste is lovely, I do like these bundt cakes that use greek yoghurt. The ingredients are as follows;
400g flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. yerba mate powder (or matcha tea - you can probably get away with a little less of this quantity as it is expensive and my pot was quite small).
100g coconut oil, softened
170g butter, softened (or benecol tastes like butter spread)
300g caster sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean, scraped
4 eggs
170g greek yoghurt
Juice of one small blood orange
And for more about how to make this, hop over to Surf & Scallop. Where you can see how Claire puts it all together.
oh my friggin gosh (pardon my toned down swearing) but its been ages since I've been able to blog and it's driving me nuts. Reasons; well trying to locate to Suffolk isn't going smoothly. Firstly I bought furniture for a house that I really want and packed my belongings into boxes, ok another story, so I had a house full of boxes and large furniture and we couldn't move or do anything. Secondly, as you do, I arranged for the broadband to be cut off. Three weeks of no broadband, going to cafes and friends houses and we caved in and had to get a new contract out to re-connect with the living world. So I've moved all my stuff into storage so at least my stuff is living in Suffolk even though I'm stuck in limbo land trying to tie up contracts.
Anyway, now with a bit of space and wifi, I can at least update here a little bit. I've been decorating and coming up with ideas of new looks for the next house, you can see some of my inspiration on pinterest where you will also see that my banner is crushing on the lilac green theme as well. You may remember my bath that I made over using Annie Sloan products. I decided to add more copper leaf to it. To gild any object is super easy, you need to get something called 'gold size' strange name I know, but it basically glue. You paint the 'size' glue on, wait until it turns clear and then press your leaves of silver, gold or copper onto it. Brush away the excess. Leaves come in the three metallic shades and are either stuck to a backing or loose. To be honest, the ones that are attached to a backing paper are much easier to handle.
I also thought about trying matcha tea. I bought some at the wonderful Daylesford Farm Shop. My first attempt to use it was as a latte made with almond milk. Unfortunately the taste wasn't great, although it looks ok in photos. I maybe will try using it differently next time, (not the fault of the tea, more of my ineptitude).
I hope to be doing a big re-launch in a month or so, and perhaps manage to blog in between. Until then please find me on instagram or facebook. I really appreciate your understanding. On a personal note, my very dear friend Ben passed away this week, he was an incredibly talented soul who I met when he was playing with the band Miranda Sex Garden. The world is slight less interesting for the loss of him and Ben, wherever you are, I miss you already. Love to all, hold your loved ones tight. x
What's the big deal with rhubarb then. Well firstly it's in the shops right now in March, although it's probably forced in hot houses, so I'm not entirely sure if it's seasonal or not. This humble vegetable, yes you read that right, it's a veg and not a fruit (which I say with an element of surprise because that hadn't occurred to me before), is packed full of goodness.
A few facts about why you need to get cooking with these beautiful long stems of ruby. It's low in fat, low in calories, cholesterol free (my main reason), and high in fibre. Rhubarb also contains as much calcium as a glass of milk, (great for the vegans then)and also has vitamin A and potassium. Unfortunately because it is 'tart'to taste, it's easy to overdo the sugar, so I've tried to hold back on that and using brown sugar with stevia in it to reduce the calories. I've tried a few recipes to see how to get some variety but I'm not going to post those here, I just googled up some ideas and what you can see here is a galette and some 'biscuits'. The galette was perfect, so just find yourself a recipe for the pastry and then add the rhubarb. It seems like a good idea, according to most recipes, to soak the cut rhubarb in some juice and a bit of sugar, although I'm not entirely sure what difference that makes. When you place it on the galette pastry don't include the liquid though. As the stalks are nice and firm, you can cut and arrange in lovely patterns. I sprinkled a bit of sugar and cinnamon on the rhubarb and pressed some flaked almonds onto the pastry crust.
The 'biscuits' weren't such a success story, I followed a recipe but something wasn't quite right on my part, they were basically sponge cupcakes without the paper case. All was not lost, I stewed the remaining stalks and then did a chef kinda styling thing with the soft biscuits, piling them up and placing the remaining stalks on top. To keep it healthy, I topped it off with a chocolate soya desert. It occurred to me that these soft biscuits would actually make a good alternative to a trifle type layered desert.
As a novice I'm still experimenting a lot, and finding inspiration on instagram and vero from those much better than myself. Here's some cool cooking blogs to check out ; Figs and Pigs, who also sell kitchenalia www.figsandpigs.com and have so many mouthwatering recipes I don't know where to start. For a much more sophisticated tart than mine check out https://www.twiggstudios.com/2018/03/rhubarb-lemon-rosemary-tart/which might just be the next thing I try, the photos on both these blogs are really beautiful too. Because I'm cutting down on cholesterol I replace butter with benecol, which may well mean that the pastry isn't anything like it should be, but it tastes fine to me and the mister. So that's all I've managed to get up to recently while I'm waiting to relocate to my new base in Suffolk. My old suffolk cottage will be an Air bnb if all goes well so watch out if you want a lovely weekend break near Southwold. Love and rhubarb x
I've got to be honest, until a few weeks ago I had no idea what a bundt cake was. I kept seeing these fantastic shaped, highly photogenic, cakes on instagram and vero, which after closer inspection, turned out to be this cake called bundt. It seems, from what I can find, that a bundt cake is not any particular recipe, but just one cooked in a bundt pan, or tin. I think the tins are beautiful and as I do love a bit of kitchenalia, may have to get a few. Based on a European Gugelhupf, a bundt is more about the shape, always in a ring, with fluted sides.
I followed the recipe I mentioned in my previous post, from eighty20nutrition for Rose and Pistachio bundt cake, although I didn't have the dried ligonberry powder or the rose petals, but instead found some freeze dried raspberry bits. I do think the lingonberry powder sounds lovely, so may have to treat my baking cupboard to a jar.
I also had a bit of a mis-hap with the rose essence, and perhaps will be sure not to overdo it next time.
The topping is a bit naughty but incredibly tasty, not too sweet and adds to an already moist and fluffy cake. It uses coconut cream which opened up a whole debate over whether coconut oil is good or bad for cholesterol. My good friends on instagram/vero - Alternative Ageing (who is a nutritionist) and Jax both sent me links about how, although coconut oil is high in saturated fat, it does not create bad cholesterol. If you look on the 'Trust Me, I'm A Doctor' website, you will see that in tests the group who had coconut oil had no increase in the bad cholesterol, just a minor drop in it. So, while I'd been googling about whether I should or should not have coconut oil, some of the reports were not entirely accurate. Back to this gorgeous recipe, the great thing about the coconut cream is how it stays looking perfect and doesn't sink into the cake and it also gives a lovely look to the decoration, running exactly where it is poured. The ingredients are free from flour as the recipe is nutritionally very good, containing dates, ground almonds, olive oil, apple cider vinegar ... so many good whole food ingredients. See the site http://eighty20nutrition.com
I can honestly say this is one of the most delicious cakes I've ever tasted, even after a few days it was still moist. I'm actually not a lover of cake normally, I find it too sweet and I don't want to consume butter and sugar in large quantities. If you are looking for a healthy alternative to normal cake then this is the one for you. I also think that the shape of the bundt lends itself perfectly to decoration, fill the centre with fruits and sprinkle nuts and dried fruits on top of the coconut cream. I've got my eyes on a bundt recipe using blueberries and yoghurt but I will definitely be going back to this one time and time again. On the Eighty 20 nutrition site I've also seen a beetroot and chestnut soup, oh hello! Two of my favourite ingredients. If you have any cholesterol busting recipes then message me the link over on any of the social media platforms - Instagram, Vero and Facebook. I will happily give it a try and feature you on my blog, (you also get to keep photos of what I've cooked if you like!). Happy Baking .... Janice Issitt
I never thought I would get so enthusiastic about cooking but the promise of a lovely new kitchen when I move, and the influence of some amazing cooking photographers and bloggers ... I couldn't resist. Every time I see a photo of poached pears I think 'oh I really must remember to try that' and immediately forget. They look so gorgeous when ruby red, poached in wine or port, but I really didn't want to open a bottle of wine just to poach the pears, so I rummaged in the wine rack and found something that I guessed might work.
I read a lot of different poaching recipes to get the general idea, some of which were for mulled wine, with cinnamon and other spices, and so I guessed that my random left over bottle of un-opened Heston mulled cider would probably be just as good. Unfortunately no longer available for sale, maybe it will come back on the shelves again at Christmas. It's an oak aged Herefordshire cider that is spiced with cloves, cinnamon and ginger. Great, I thought, seeing as I don't have any cloves or cinnamon sticks in the cupboard, this should do the trick.
I peeled the pears very carefully, leaving the stalks intact, and slicing just a bit off the bottom so they can stand up. However I didn't poach them standing up, but laid them in a saucepan with a lid and covered in the cider, some sugar, and a chunk of fresh ginger. I also added a dash of vanilla and maple syrup.
Simmer the pears for anywhere between 30 to 60 minutes, some recipes say longer but personally, I think they might have fallen apart if I'd left them too long.
Remove the pears from the saucepan and leave to one side while you boil up the leftover cider to reduce it. I had no idea how it would taste so it was a complete guess. Served with a dollop of fat free greek yoghurt and a drizzle of the cider reduction. Eh, voila! A beautiful warming way to get one of your five a day! So I mentioned on Vero that I would feature some of the great accounts I have found there. I'm about to try a recipe for a Bundt cake from the www.eighty20nutrition.com which is the website of Donna Crous, if you see the photos there you will want to make everything, and they are not only healthy but also use things like the nutribullet to whizz up the ingredients (which was a relief as I don't have any gadgets). More of that bundt cake coming soon ... don't forget to find me on vero love and pears xx
Over on Instagram I've decided to extend my #behomefree tag to highlight the dark photos that I've been moving toward of late, and also to add another tag for that community so that we can find each other. There are several good tags already running, particularly #ihavethisthingfordarkness by good instagram friend Tracy Goldfinch Elson, who features in my round-up below.
It's hard to define why we are drawn to certain aesthetics, I find the dark photos restful, the colours become more jewel like, and there is mystery in the depth of the unknown black.
It is also quite a hard look to accomplish and often needs a fair bit of editing afterwards. I find that I am drawn to photos that have a reasonable level of photographic skill and good styling, but that's because I need to be inspired to improve.
You don't have to be a genius at photoshop though as there are now good phone apps which can do a remarkable job. I was introduced to 'Snapseed' by Sara Tasker on her Gloom And Glow course and below you can see the results of one of its functions, for double exposure.
My inspiration for this photo of my friends daughter was 'the death of Chatterton' a pre-raphaelite painting by Henry Wallis. I have long wanted to do a version of this and will certainly try again when I have more time. Also my next house has the right sort of windows to replicate it, so that will be future feature. However, the subject matter seemed a little too dark and morbid for a young girl, so I changed it up with double exposures as you can see.
The sunrise and the snap out of an airplane window are perfect for this, so sometimes it's just good to have a few of these snaps in your phone. It was a happy coincidence that the airplane photo of clouds and sun was placed is just the right way to illuminate the head of Tippy. Because the original photo of her has a lot of darkness it makes the double exposure more effective as you have lots of negative space for the new image to lay on top of.
I'm hoping that more new people will come along and join the tag, it's great to network on instagram, so I welcome along the dark photo lovers from all over the world. To use my tag just add 'underscore' dark like this ; #behomefree_dark
Apologies, I'm not able to post so regularly at the moment, life getting in the way, so posts aren't as frequent, and a bit erratic. So although the photos don't reflect the words in this post, I will just whack a couple in here for decorative purposes while I talk about a few books I've read recently, or should I say, heard recently as I listen to books on Audible (not sponsored just thoroughly recommended) and if you haven't tried it then do, because it's thoroughly enjoyable, you can listen while doing other things like driving, knitting, washing up or falling asleep, and I find it takes the tedium out of those things to be swept away into another world, another time and to learn. Learning to me is like an addiction and I'm going to talk about addiction further on, I constantly research facts, and soak up information about history, medicine and life. I've been listening to Russell Brand quite a lot as he reads his own book on Audible about addiction, so I've got him in my head ranting at the moment which may come out in my post here, it certainly did come out in my phone call to an old mortgage provider earlier, insert laughing emoji.
The first book I want to recommend is The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman. What I particularly love is that it is based on the real life story of French Impressionist painter Camille Pissaro. Like I said, I love to learn new stuff, so when a book or film has non-fiction elements, I find it all the better. This is an interesting concept, the historical novel, a work of fiction based around true events and real people.
The book concentrates on the mother of Camille Pissaro and his early life growing up on St. Thomas, which came as a surprise to me as well as to the author, that he wasn't born and raised in France. The painterly way the author writes fits perfectly with the subject matter, the colours of the exotic island made me hop on to google and look at pictures of it. I like this idea that from the historical facts and the paintings of this incredible artist, Hoffman has woven together such an interesting book. Life is actually stranger than fiction.
My second recommendation is Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. I found this a light hearted look at what, underneath, was a very dark subject. Without giving the plot away, we find it quite whimsical and entertaining to see life through the eyes of Eleanor, a character that I hugely empathised with. I kept thinking, "God, I'm just like that", and I loved her naive observations on social situations, which I also find grating and difficult at times.
The story of Eleanor, who leads a double life of what the outside world sees, and what is happening behind closed doors is a stab to remind us not to judge a book by it's cover. I particularly like her obsession with a wannabe rock star, who is quite a familiar type of character to me. A narcissistic failure of a musician who constantly tweets about how life is against him, but sadly Eleanor cannot see through his excuses and the juxtaposition of the socially inadequate Eleanor and the attention seeking musician is very amusing.
These two books are the ones that stand out to me in my list of recently read, I have a long list of those I've listened to but whose stories are so familiar that they haven't been much more than a passing distraction, which was fine at the time, but didn't leave a lasting impression.
And so onto Russell Brand's book 'Recovery, Freedom from Our Addictions'.
If you don't think you are an addict, then you are totally wrong. We are all addicted to something, it is the age of preconditioning, where consumerism plays on our two biggest instincts as humans - fear and passion. You probably don't even realise you are addicted, or that you have sub-consciously programmed yourself to behave and react in certain ways. This book is a revelation. It is truthful and honest, it's neither preachy God bothering or bible bashing, nor new age airy fairy nonsense.
Brand takes the twelve step programme that works for drug addicts, and makes us see that this can work for everyone no matter what your level of addiction. Admittedly my addictions to social media, shopping, caffeine, shopping, oh did I say that already, yes it's that bad, don't seem on the surface life threatening, or not as life threatening as heroin maybe, but if your bad self programming and failure to confront your addictions leads to suicide then perhaps it is just as harmful.
I have fallen victim to the consumerism that targets my deepest insecurities. I stopped buying 'womens magazines' some 30 years ago, I think around the time that really skinny models were the fashion. I could neither look like them nor could I afford the stuff that was supposed to make me look like them. I hated myself for that, so I tried to remove myself from the temptation to be duped. But it's still there, only now I can afford to buy the cosmetic surgery, the expensive accessories, the make-up and hair products, and I still hate myself, because I am ageing.
If you've made it down this post to here then you are still with me, good, Russell puts it much better than me. See what he says about happiness, not sure I've totally found it yet, my little brain keeps putting the spanner in, no no you're not supposed to be happy you did this, she said that and on and on.
So I don't mind admitting that I'm fucked. I acknowledge that, and I often think 'could I not be fucked'. Well I thought I could sort it on my own, but really I can't and if you watch below you may find out why. So even if Russell is my only friend in this 'un-fucking' I will attempt to open up the topic with people I know. He talks about the inventory and I'm not sure I can actually write the list, but trust me, the list is in my head, it's there every day. The boy that didn't fancy me, the woman that hit me in the face in my work place, the backstabbers in another job, I've allowed them to contribute to my programming.
The fucked up patterns need to be recognised, we all have the patterns whether you want to admit it or not. You are the person you were told to be. Russell's acknowledgement that present day culture plays on our lowest instincts, the fears, desires and lusts, in order that we will be good consumers, and ignores the facts that we can be kind, loving and generous, is such an important point to recognise. Try your hardest to sweep away the constant futuristic bombardment of advertising, maybe detox from social media. Personally I like social media as it's how I communicate with friends but perhaps we need to start being honest there more often, start our own topics of conversation rather than click bait sharing of what an advertising algorithm wants us to think.
I posted something to this avail on my facebook page, and honestly, I don't think that it's being shown to my friends. The algorithms that control now what we do and don't see are frustrating me to the point of depression, because I'm addicted to getting likes, and comments and love hearts to my photos.
Can I just say, give it consideration, in trying to un-fuck ourselves we can only benefit others, with kindness, with apologies, and just generally not dragging them down by contributing to their pattern of self-hate. Just think, if know-one had ever been nasty to you, how different would you be. I know I would be, my relationships would have been a hell of a lot better with partners and friends. Although I'm not sure that the 'enlightened' me would have succeeded in the world I worked in where I fuelled consumerism, played the media games, adhered to the structures of the corporation. In Russell's book he talked about working at MTV, a place I was very familiar with in my line of work, and amazingly I never ran into him during my time in the 'music business' or time working in Camden.
I expect that part of what fucked up Russell was that environment and the game they are all playing in these companies, where music, an art form, is being treated and worked as if it were a tin of beans or a packet of fags. Where chart positions are deemed as important as a doctor working in a hospital. I several times voiced my opinion in meetings 'come on guys we aren't saving lives here, get a grip, it's not a life or death situation' when a band had failed to get on a tv show or reach a place in the billboard chart. And this resulted in me twice being sacked.
Like a lot of people with mental health problems, I over analyse and this is a double edged sword. While it protects us from the bullshit it also drags us into some dark depths.
Perhaps by having a listen and consideration to what Russell is talking about here can help us hone our bullshit monitor and dismiss our self destructive one. It's got to be worth a try.
Hi there, continuing my chat about taking still life photos in and Old Masters style, here's a few more images and some tips on how to get the look.
My equipment; Canon 5D MkIV camera, on tripod with a zoom lens, edited in photoshop, aided by some Florabella Actions.
Controlling the light.
I take these photos on a table next to a window, one that does not get direct sun, (the window is on the left). You don't want it too bright, nor do you want it lit from both sides so close off light sources on the opposite side to the window (right side). Sometimes I find the sun is strong at the other end of the house and this can lighten it too much, making it flat. So I pull the curtains to block the direct sun on the right so that my only light source is now on the left.
Sometimes for variation I flip the final image, so if you think the one below looks like the light is coming from the right that is why. To control the light source on the left through the window, you need to tunnel the light, into a shaft (roughly), if that makes sense. I have shutters on this window that bi-fold and this gives me optimum flexibility.
The photo below shows how I have controlled the light to fall only on the front left corner of the table. Keeping the background in darkness. Remember that you don't need to see the whole of an object to tell what it is. The settings on the camera need to be on aperture mode, and as you are working in such low light you must be on a tripod. Here's where the new model Canon 5D MkIV comes into its own; the live screen with touch focus helps you to read the light at the brightest point and dial down or up how dark you want it to look.
The more you use photoshop, the more you realise what you can change after shooting. As I'm old school I try to frame and shoot as close as possible to the final look as I can. But if you find that you can't quite get the drama then don't worry because you can tweak that in the editing. I shoot in very large format, often in RAW and then reduce the image after editing so that it's the right size for social media. Something else I've started to do more recently is getting into the shot myself and putting the camera on timer. It can take a bit of playing with and frankly it can be a bit hit and miss, but as we are shooting on digital, just keep going until you start to get the results.
Photographing smoke and steam is quite a challenge, steam is reliant on the temperature of the room and as it disappears quite quickly can be particularly hard to capture. Smoke from extinguished candles however is a bit easier and adds such an atmospheric touch to a still life photo (I talked about it's symbolic meaning in my previous post). Some candles smoke more than others so track down the ones in your house which release a good plume when they are blown out.
The background needs to be pretty dark for the smoke to show and the light needs to hit it just right so I tend to put the candles in the lightest area of the setting and move the window shutters so the light really hits them.
Finally the editing. I open up the images in photoshop.
I purchased a few sets of effects from 'Florabella Actions' some time ago, and while I tend not to use the filters and pre-sets any more, I do use some of the short cuts that come in it's actions list. It can be quite hard to learn photoshop when you are teaching yourself so these packages of looks can be very useful and also speed things up. There are other brands around so it might be a good idea to spend some time watch the video tutorials on those site.
For this kind of drama I use the Dodge and Burn brushes to make the darks darker and bring up the spots of light if necessary. Watch out what this does to the colour though, because darkening can sometimes make the colour too vivid so you may want to then neutralise the area with a brush tool or turn down the saturation.
Don't forget to follow me on Instagram to see more of these along with some daily chat and nonsense x
