wallpaper couture style

I love Vivienne Westwood - her designs are off the wall but also have a classic appeal. Her pirate designs, corset dresses and use of colour for me are not only beautiful but are also woman friendly - the cut of her clothes does not favour size zero and instead to my mind can be worn by any woman.

So, when I saw that Cole and Son are stocking a range of wallpapers designed from archive patterns from VW I discovered yet another avenue for day dreaming and one day possibly owning a bit of Viv.

the blog is back!

Yes - having moved and got settled and despite hectic workload that doesn't look like it will ever ease up I am back with the blog. So there should now be regular updates on all things food, books, interiors and generally stuff I like.

moving!

Blogging may be even more erratic than usual as we are moving house! We will be moving through to Stirling next weekend and I am spending my time packing and organising for the move. Andy and I will be making our favourite dinners though the last two nights we have in Dundee so will blog about them when I get the chance. Saturday night Andy will be making mushroom risotto and his amazing chocolate cake and on the Sunday I am doing roast beef with all the trimmings. I haven't decided on a pudding yet - I think Andy will have a say in that!

carrot cake

A while back I blogged about a recipe for carrot cake that I used and thought was really good but that the timings, for me anyway, were a bit off. So this weekend I gave it another shot and here is the recipe I am now happy with!

150g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp cinnamon powder
150g caster sugar
250g grated carrot
100g shelled walnuts, chopped
150ml corn/vegetable oil
2 eggs, beaten
1tsp vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees
Grease and line a cake tin
Sieve flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and cinnamon powder in a mixing bowl
Stir in the caster sugar, walnuts and carrots - mix well


Pour in the oil, eggs and vanilla essence and stir well


Beat mixture for one minute
Put the cake batter into the tin and bake for 60 minutes
Remove and leave to cool for five minutes before turning onto a cooling rack
leave to cool completely

For the icing:

50g butter - room temp
75g cream cheese - full fat
Half a teaspoon of vanilla essence
100g icing sugar

Beat the butter until smooth then add the cream cheese and vanilla essence
Gradually stir in the icing sugar
Spread the icing over the cake


This pic turned out a bit weird - I don't know why - my lack of photography skills perhaps!

If you like you could keep back a handful of walnuts and decorate with them.

If you want to cut the cake in half and have icing inside too - up your icing ingredients by a third. You can do it with the original recipe but I like plenty of icing!!!

sunday baking and cooking

Last Sunday I had a bit of a blast on the cooking and baking - I felt like doing a bit of baking and trying something new for Sunday dinner. So, I made some rock buns, some shortbread and tried out a new recipe for scallops and chorizo for our Sunday dinner.


I decided on shortbread as Andy drew my attention to my rather amazing collection of cookie cutters yesterday - by way of demanding they be put in their own box rather than getting tangled up in the kitchen drawer. I hadn't quite realised how many I have myself. So they now have their own home and they are gonna get used today!


I also decided to cook scallops for the first time. I cooked them with chorizo and sweetfire beetroot salad. I don't know what the recipe was but I saw beetroot and scallops on a plate together on a clip of Masterchef I saw the previous week. So I decided to wing it on the details of the actual recipe and devise what I thought would produce what I saw on the tele and see what happens. Having never done scallops I was a wee bit nervous so had a pizza in the freezer in case it all went horribly wrong.

Anyway - as you will see from the links to the dishes, it all went very well and the dish is now part of my repertoire. I do think though that while the quality of the scallops is paramount and goes without saying, the quality of the chorizo matters too - while the chorizo used was pricier than what I usually get at the supermarket it was really worth it and in fact you could use less as a result.

The shortbread was wolfed down at both our workplaces so felt quite happy with that too. It goes without saying that Andy devoured the rock buns. I am not sure what it is about them he likes so much but if that is what keeps him happy who am I to complain!

shortbread

I love shortbread - it reminds me of my Gran - both for the shortbread she would often have in the house (bought from M&S - she didn't cook or make things herself - just made sure we all had a good sweet tooth developed!) and for all the coffee mornings she would take us to as kids. My Gran knew in detail all the best coffee mornings in Ayr and we got a good education in how to form a strategy for getting the most out of a jumble sale and how to nab the best cakes.

And shortbread is easy peasy to make and quick to cook - so you can whip up a tray of biscuits really quite easily and take the glory for what your guests will perceive as hours of hard work in the kitchen. You can make shortbread into the traditional round marked out for slices but I like to use lots of different cookie cutters instead. I have a cat, moon, teapot, airplane, butterfly, star, gingerbread man and loads more.


The recipe I use is taken from the Farmhouse Kitchen Cook Book - a bible of cooking for our family if ever there was one.

225g/8oz unsalted butter, room temperature
125g/40z caster sugar
325g/12oz plain white flour, sifted

Put butter in a bowl and beat until soft
Mix in the sugar until creaming
Mix in the flour using hands if necessary. The mixture should be firm - like shortcrust pastry.
You can do each of the above stages in the food mixer if you like
Knead until smooth and free of cracks
If you have time, leave it to rest in the fridge for 15-30 mins
Use half the quantity to roll out to 1cm thickness and then use your cookie cutters to cut out your biscuits
With the second half, cut out more biscuits or roll out to a circle 1cm thick, flute the edges and mark with a knife into eight sections to make a shortbread round
Place your shortbread onto a greased baking sheet, pin prick on the surface to let the air out and stop bubbles forming
Bake for around 30 minutes until just lightly golden - to much cooking and the shortbread will turn bitter
When still warm dredge with caster sugar

This recipe is also good for making shortbread fancies to go with strawberries and ice cream.

scallops and chorizo

Andy and I were in Bridge of Allan last Saturday and stopped in at Clive Ramsay's deli for lunch and a look round the shop. I picked up some amazing chorizo and decided that, inspired by a recent Masterchef clip I had seen, to do scallops and chorizo for Sunday dinner.


We got scallops from the Tesco fish counter - a new fishmonger has opened up in Dundee that I will need to try out but bad planning on my part meant we were reliant on what Tesco had to offer.

I also made the Moro inspired sweetfire beetroot salad that I have become a bit addicted to as an accompaniment with rosemary and garlic potatoes and a basic salad. That with some ciabatta to soak up the dreamy juices and we were both as happy as clams (and not as scallops!).


I made the potatoes first and popped them in the oven to keep warm as the scallops and chorizo need quick cooking. The beetroot can be prepared in advance too - just don't add the dressing until the last moment though else it will turn a bit too pink!

I cut up the chorizo and pan fried for about 5 minutes and until the orangey oil that chorizo holds started oozing into the pan. You don't need to have any oil in the pan to fry the chorizo as it has it's own wee store of it and you don't want to dilute the flavour.

I then removed the chorizo from the pan and added the scallops. The scallops cook in the chorizo oil and pick up the smokey flavour and orange colour. They took about 5 minutes to cook and I used five scallops each.

Then, for the last minute, add the chorizo and give the pan a good shake and stir.

To serve, I popped the scallops and chorizo, potatoes and salad on a plate, served the beetroot separate so you get to manage the pinky ooze, and we had pear cider to go with it. Not sure if pear cider would be the suggested tipple but it worked for us.


The chorizo was amazing - sweet and smokey with a tang of saltiness which really enhanced the meaty scallops. The beetroot gave a fresh, light and zingy contrast as chorizo and scallops are really quite heavy - certainly five scallops each was enough to make you very full. The potatoes I just love with anything and the garlic sat well with the scallops. Good bread is a must to soak up the orange juices on your plate - and to scoop up the yoghurt sauce from the beetroot.

To say we were satisfied understates how sated we felt at the end of the meal!