Green Tea Macaroons

Round 3 of macaroon making...

Green tea with lemon in the middle.

From a lovely book given to me for Christmas by someone lovely...

Macaroons

Tricky little guys.. but here are my first attempts. 

Raspberry Ripple, which turned out pretty nifty. 

Peanut Butter and Jam, which are not quite as pretty but just as tasty. 

Good with a cuppa!

The Bleat and the Pulse

Some personalised frames made for presents over the past few months...

Frames, pictures, knick knacks and glue...

One of my favourite projects in a long while.

Ariel Flowering Tea

It seems a tiny little sweet-smelling ball of tea. Drop it into almost boiling water and voilá, it blooms. Smells beautiful (jasmine and green tea and chinese lily... dreamy), looks fascinating and tastes like green tea. Gets a bit too jasmine-y taste-wise after it's stewed for a while but the whole house smells divine afterwards.

Spicy Roast Pumpkin and Peanut Soup

Baby it's cold outside... And pretty miserable. I had great intentions of going on a long walk, having a half day and all, but the rain put a stop to that. While sculling a hot cup of tea I decided what I really wanted was soup, and I set to work looking for some ingredients. I based the recipe on a Darina Allen one, but the peanuts were my own genius (if I do say so myself) idea. Anyway, here are the ingredients (although I didn't really measure anything).

• 1 pumpkin (we had one left over from hallowe'en)
• peanuts (shelled but not salted)
• about 6 shallots (or two big onions I suppose. Red ones might be nice actually)
• 2 tins of chopped tomatoes
• garlic (that's upto yourself, I would put in loads but that's just me)
• 1.5 litres stock (chicken, veg, whatever)
• 0.5 litres orange juice
• salt, pepper
• nutmeg
• cinnamon
• thyme
• cumin seeds
• 6 whole cloves
• wholegrain mustard (I had one with Guinness in it apparently. Good stuff)

With any of those spices at the end, it's upto you how much you put in, I like mine pretty spicy so I went with loads.

Right, Instructions Time.

1. Chop up your pumpkin and scrape out the seeds and gunk from the middle. Roast in the oven for around half an hour to soften (best to rub a little olive oil on them first). Roast your garlic as well so it's nice and sweet.

2. While your pumpkin and garlic are roasting, shell your peanuts and put them in an oven proof dish with a little olive oil. Also, slice your shallots.

3. Throw the shallots into a large pot with some butter (you should probably melt it first). Take out the pumpkin and garlic and swap with the peanuts for roasting. If you have a massive oven you could maybe do all that at once but I don't. You should be able to scoop the pumpkin out of its skin and toss this into the pot with your shallots. Add in your garlic (if you've roasted it you can just squish it out of its skin, otherwise crush him) and chopped tomatoes and leave on a medium heat for around 10 minutes til everything gets a bit squishy.

4. At this point add in your roast peanuts, stock, orange juice and spices and give it a good stir. Leave it to simmer for a while and then take it off the heat so you can attack it with a handheld blender type of thing. What are they called? Is it just a blender? Anyway.

After this it's up to you really; need more salt? pepper? spicy stuff? mustard? I found I had to add a little sugar as the chopped tomatoes were a little bitter. Then give it one more blitz with the blender and make sure it's hot before you put it into neat little bowls.

Pretty darn good. Although afterwards I realised I would have liked it with brown bread and cheese. Mmmm. Maybe later... 

A Tea Dress

I'm not going to lie, this is purely a gloating post. I MADE a dress. Oh yes. Out of fabric and zips and needles and threads and other amazing stuff (such as wundaweb...). ME!

Now I just need an occasion to wear it at. Exciting times!

Free dress patterns here (plus other cool stuff): http://www.burdastyle.com/patterns?free=1&most_recent=1

The one I made is called a "Danielle" dress.

Masquerade!

I mentioned last time that I've been running a summer camp with two friends (GAS craic - that's Guitar, Art and Singing and I teach the art workshops) so I thought I'd show off a little of what we did the second week with the older kids (11- 15 year olds).

During the second week we designed t-shirts, giant posters, treasure boxes, cd covers... but I think my personal favourite were masks. We took our inspiration from things like Lady Gaga, the Phantom of the Opera, animals, celebrities etc, and the kids set to work.

Here's one I made as an example:

They're pretty easy to make and lots of fun, and look great at a fancy dress party or even stuck up on a wall! 

1. Draw out the shape of your mask on a sheet of card (or cereal box card is good too!) and cut it out.
2. Place the cut out shape on to another sheet of card and trace around it - you need to cut this second one out for the back.
3. Before sticking the two together, decorate it front and back with whatever you like - I like collage and sparkly things.
4. Paste glue on the undecorated side of the back of the mask. Place a stick on one side for the handle (wooden skewers or lolly pop sticks are good) and if you want to have some feathers sticking out, go for it.
5. Stick the front of the mask on top (so the stick and feathers and anything else are sandwiched inside).
6. Leave to dry and then cut out the eyes! (If a grown up could do it with a stanley knife that's probably the easiest, if not, carefully pierce one eye part and then cut around from where you pierced it with the scissors)

And there you go! A good one for a rainy day...

Summertime and the living is...

surprisingly busy!

First of all, a big thank you to Lilly for Edna the Mermaid, who arrived some time ago and who is living it up at her new home! She's only gorgeous!

Where have I been for the last forever and what have I been doing? Well, some nothing here and there but mostly it's been a jam packed few weeks as I've been doing lots of illustrating, surfing in Donegal (or at least attempting to), visiting friends around the place, reading lots (American Gods by Neil Gaiman - do it), playing a bit of guitar, and generally doing stuff that doesn't involve the internet. However my main project at the minute has been this:

Myself and two friends are running a summer camp (yep with guitar, art and singing) at the minute. We're approaching the end of week 1, and week 2 starts Monday! So far it's been brilliant, but we are wrecked from all the running around! I run the art part, which this week involves poster making, painting murals, making maracas, painting t-shirts and face painting with a group of kids from ages 5-12. They're very talented and LOVE glitter.

Here are some of the maracas they made: 

Basically we got two plastic cups, threw in a few lentils, masking taped the two cups together, masking taped over the rest of the surface area (easier to paint) and then they let loose with the paint and sparkles and feathers!

Raspberry Dream

Oooh la la! I had great fun making this yesterday; it survived the night in the fridge and looked quite well this morning I must say! Basically it's a cheesecake recipe, made up of a few ideas from one of those Women's weekly cookbooks (they make me feel like I'm 65 when I buy them, but grannies make the best cakes so it's ok).

You need:

• 225g of delicious biscuits (I used Hob Nobs but I think ginger nut biscuits would be good too)
• 60g melted butter
• 300g raspberries (frozen will do)
• 2 tsps gelatine
• 2 tbsps water
• 375g cream cheese
• 50g caster sugar
• 2 tsps lemon juice
• 300ml cream
• a 22cm springform tin with cling film around the rim (but not the base, pop that back in after you put the cling film on).

Here's what I did:

1. Smash up the biscuits in a sandwich bag with a rolling pin or something like that, and then add them to the melted butter and mix well.
2. Spread this around the base of the tin and leave in the fridge for a half an hour while you make the other bits and pieces
3. Mix the gelatine and water in a heatproof jug and leave to stand in simmering water for a few mins, stirring it until it's totally disolved. Leave to cool for a few mins.
4. Beat the cheese, lemon and sugar in a bowl (yay for electric mixers), then beat in the cream and finally stir in the gelatine mix.
5. Put the raspberries on top of the biscuit base and pour in your filling. It should look like this.

Then you can decorate with a few spare raspberries if you like.

Leave it in the fridge overnight and then you can pop open the tin, gently remove the cling film and be left with something like the picture at the top. A hoard of hungry teachers descended on mine and devoured it in 10 minutes flat. I manage to get a wee crumbly bit for myself... and it was good.

Blue Skies and Brass Chains

It seems like only yesterday (actually it was, wasn't it?) I was anticipating a heat wave... and now look! Well, "heat wave" might be a touch on the hyperbolé side of things, but at least there is sunshine! A good day all round actually -  make and do things arrived in the post, I got thank-you presents, plus got some good news on a prospective business venture... and made a cheesecake! (pics to follow, once it has set completely!)

Anyway, remember the turtle locket I got? Well the make and do stuff what arrived today meant I could put it on a chain finally! Have a closer look!

I actually think the clasp is my favourite bit though. You might not be able to see below, but the little twig holding it shut is also a little brass flower.

I may still add a little more to it, but I'm happy with it for now!