Eggs 'Mehalah'

The Tartist's Eggs 'Mehalah

 

The artist's mum Pixie had a visit from his brother, the lovely Will Weaver to celebrate Mother's day at the weekend and they came round for some of our granddaughter Amelia's 2nd birthday cake at Holly & Martyn's house.

It's always nice to see Will and have a catch up but it was made extra special this time by his praise for our own latest invention at the Artcafé  - Eggs 'Mehalah'.

Blanching local samphire

I'd actually forgotten how much time we spent trialing this dish and what a pain making Hollandaise was before our new recipe. And yes, homemade Hollandaise really does make all the difference!

Not as long I might add as Raymond Blanc takes - his dishes sometimes take 6 months of effort, but this does result in fabulous things like his chocolate cup and saucer filled with coffee sponge and mousse, I wish I had one of those to eat now!

Maggie's Soda Bread

Now that the kerfuffle of our refit has died down and nearly everything is done my mind has turned to bread making. 
We have been asked so many times for a yeast free bread and a brown soda bread seems like a jolly good idea. I’ve been making it, and eating far too much, for the last few weeks, and thought I’d put some samples out for everyone to try. So today, (Friday 15th March) and tomorrow we will have samples in the Artcafe and in The Cakehole.
Come and try a bit and let me know what you think.
Soda bread doesn’t have the long shelf life of many breads but my most recent one at home is now three days old and still lovely. If it does go dry its very nice toasted and eaten with butter and honey. Although I haven’t tried this yet  I’m sure you could slice it, freeze it and have a slice whenever you like.

 

Here's one I made earlier!

Reflections ~ Daily Sketch 04/12/16

Reflections - Watercolour + Wax

I sketched this from my studio window after the sun had set behind Salcott Creek & Tollesbury this evening.

Advent Calendar 2016

3rd December

Today's window reveals a rather androgynous looking fellow, wearing  an elf's jacket carrying a basket full of rather gender specific Christmas gifts.

Advent Calendar

2nd December

So today's window on our advent calendar reveals a nice sprig of holly, ancient celts among you will recognise this as a symbol of good luck, or if you swing the other way it can be symbolic of Christ's crown of thorns.

We're Back!

Yes we are back on this first day of December 2016 with an advent calendar and a recipe from the Tartist. 

This year we have bought ourselves a traditional advent calendar, not being big fans of the dodgy branded chocolate ones.

1st December 

Today's window reveals a couple of young bell ringers, presumably ringing in the season. Nothing says christmas more than a couple of roister-doisters ringing bells, sporting hats at jaunty angles. Except perhaps the birth of the messiah.

Now I'm no Delia Smith but...

I do know a thing or two about food.
Yesterday when I was having my haircut Nicky kept stopping the blow drying process to ask me what she could take to a friends for dinner party pudding. She wanted something she could make on Friday and take on Saturday night, straight after work with no hassle.
So we came up with Baileys Cheesecake and I promised to send her a recipe this morning. It's 5 am and I can't sleep so Nicky here it is:-


• You need about a 10" spring sided deep tin. I'm not sure what these are properly called but they are deep and have a hinge that opens to loosen the sides.
• Crush 8 oz digestive biscuits (or ginger, any biscuit really but I think chocolate might be a bit yuk with the butter ) Melt 3 oz butter and stir in the crushed biscuit. Use this to make a flat layer in the bottom of the tin. Stick this in the fridge until firm. 
• For the filling you need 400g cream cheese, 6 tablespoons of icing sugar, 2 cartons of double cream 
(I think they are about 300ml each) and about three tablespoons of Baileys. Stir the icing sugar into the cream cheese, pour in the cream and whisk until it thickens. It wants to be fairly thick so that it will set with the alcohol in it. Stir the Baileys in gently. Plop onto the biscuit base, smooth the top cover and pop back in the fridge.
• To make it look Christmassy you could make a stencil, with something like a margarine lid, and use edible glitter to write something or to do a Christmas Tree and holly.

Approaching Rain ~ Daily Sketch 06/01/2015

Approaching Rain - Watercolour

I decided to leave the boats out of this view as they seemed to interfere with the simple composition of sky/marsh/water.