It's just because I'm--

Hello again!

Salad. Yeuch. Right?

I used to think so too!! Well, I've become a convert, a veritable templefoodie (thanks Nigella!) and I have to confess to being just a little bit of a health freak. I love my running, exercise - in fact, a dear friend of mine recently told me that he doubts I ever rest, and that even standing still I vibrate at a high frequency and should be insulated in a lead box on aircrafts. Anyway, restlessness aside, salad is often regrettably reduced to a lot of soupy-looking leaf, wet tomato and insipid cucumber gasping limply on the side of a plate in an effort to be valiant with one's vitamins. I am not the only one championing the rethinking of salads as delicious, rainbow concoctions both divine to look at and heavenly to eat. There will be a few "salads" popping up over the next few days, chargrilled vegetables, thai themed glories and asian inspired salad boosters. This evening we're having my father's homemade shredded chicken and gorgonzola pizzas, and I was delegated salad duty! The salad base was relatively generic - baby spinach, grated carrot and coriander, but I made a separate asian themed concoction of beanshoots, spring onion, garlic, ginger, chilli, soy sauce and nam pla. If I had a lime to hand, that would have gone in too.


You need: 


two handfuls of beanshoots
3 spring onions sliced into pennies
teaspoon dried chilli or 1 red chilli finely chopped and deseeded
1 clove garlic, crushed and finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground ginger
Sprinkling of soy sauce, and of nam pla (thai fish sauce)


In a wok, or frying pan, heat a little oil and fry your spring onions, garlic and beanshoots until they all become slightly soft to the touch, then add your chilli and ginger - cook for another 1-2 minutes until mingled and then sprinkle in your soy sauce and nam pla - sometimes a half teaspoon of sugar is quite nice here, adding depth to the sauce. The soy sauce and nam pla should just coat the onions and beanshoots, not drown them. Turn the salad marinate/dressing/sauce/concotion (I still haven't found a name for it!!) into a bowl and serve either warm or chilled with your salad!!

Anyway, dinnertime for me. (yum!)
Have great evenings!
Love,
Eloise xxx

*Shamelessphotographyplug*

Here's one I made earlier!! Just a few photos of the muffins in their glory.
xxx

Blueberries and rose petals, crystals and storms.

*Insert guilty sentence about not updating blog here*

Hello! I've missed you all. Lots has happened recently, big changes and little ones, new friends, old ones lost, all sorts of things! I have a few foodie photos to share with you, and then a rather appetising recipe, if I do say so myself.

 What do you reckon? I was recently holidaying in Gozo, specificaly the village of Xaghra. The weather was incredible! The people were so friendly, and the food was unbelievable - small peppered goats cheese, warmed olives with the gentlest flavour, sweet air-cured bresaola, huge smiles of watermelon - the list goes on! Getting to to a stormy Scotland however, despite it being the month of August, I made blueberry muffins in a fit of wet-weather gloom. I'm also shortly moving to Corsica, so I am making the most of the gorgeous green aga whislt I have it! Crystallised rose petals were also on the menu - waking up at 6 am this morning had its organisational advantages, and all I had to do today was done by ten, roughly. I shall go and be disheveled and confused for a good while after I post the recipe, in order to readdress the balance!!

Here goes!

For Elo's blueberry and cinnamon muffins, you need:

375g self raising flour

90g unsalted butter

220g caster sugar

200g blueberries

teaspoon cinnamon

310ml buttermilk (Sainsbury's do this in annoyingly sized 284ml pots, so top up the buttermilk with regular milk)

1 egg, lightly beaten

12 hole muffin case, and butter to grease

Sift your flour into a large bowl, and then rub in the butter using the very tips of your fingers. Follow up with the sugar, eggs, blueberries, buttermilk and cinnamon, then mix until lumpy - don't overmix your muffins, you'll lose precious air! Grease your muffin tin, and then scoop out your muffins from the bowl into the tin and bake in a moderately hot over for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and clean to the spearing with a skewer!

The crystallised rose petals are a matter of minutes however, (those they are sticky minutes!!) the rose petals MUST be unsprayed - you really don't want to eat pesticides, and then washed and dried before you brush them with egg white (pastry brush - hello!) and sprinkle them with caster sugar. Lay them flat on some tin foil and then leave to dry, preferably somewhere warm, like an airing cupboard (where mine are crystallising quite nicely).

I hope you all have lovely weeks and lovelier weekends!!

Eloise 

xxx