Playing with pesto

The herb garden is enjoying the hot summer weather and quite a few plants have become rather rampant. After a visit to a professional herb farm a few years ago, I did learn that cutting back chives mid-summer is a good thing to do. The basil is also about to bolt so, in an attempt to keep it going, that too needs a prune. Then there is the parsley which always seems to recover from a severe harvest.

The abundance of basil immediately made me think of making pesto and it took only minutes to gather 60g of basil which I popped into the mini blender along with a tablespoon of pine nuts, 25g of grated Pecorino Romano, a clove of garlic, a grinding of salt and 6 tablespoons of olive oil.

I then came across an idea for a Spanish inspired pesto. This had slightly different ratios of herbs, nuts, cheese and oil and this seemed to make a richer sauce. For this I used 50g almonds, 50g grated Manchego, 60g parsley, 1teaspoon of sherry vinegar, a clove of garlic and 100ml olive oil.

Using this recipe I followed with a chive, Parmesan and walnut pesto, omitting the vinegar. As you may imagine, this is quite strong but still delicious.

I've already stirred some of the basil pesto through some freshly cooked new potatoes which went brilliantly with some roasted salmon, olives, green beans, anchovies and tomatoes. The rest has been potted up and spread between the fridge and freezer and I'll enjoy stirring them through pasta and potatoes and using as a drizzle on fish and meat and to pep up salad dressing over the coming months.

If you too have an abundance of herbs I do urge you to give it a try. If you have a blender it takes just minutes and the results taste so much better than any pesto you can buy in a jar. I promise!

A greater understanding?

Many years ago I had a house mate who was dismayed at putting on weight in spite of treating herself to a nice piece of cake most afternoons. One day she decided she was going to make a cake. She had never made one before and so this was quite a big deal. A few hours later I returned home and asked her how the cake had turned out. She immediately began exclaiming how she couldn't believe how much butter and sugar went into making it and vowed to never eat cake again.

Having watched my mother bake and cook from an early age, I grew up understanding what went into most meals, even if I had no concept of calories, fat and sugar when I was little. I was therefore, quite surprised that my friend had reached her late twenties or early thirties with no concept of what she was eating.

Now, I'm not saying this from a purer-than-snow soap box because I consume my fair share of cake, cream, chocolate, butter, sugar and alcohol.  I could also exercise more and live a much, much more responsible life. However, we humans have an uncanny way of conveniently ignoring things if they are not what we want to be true. We ignore how it is that a t-shirt can cost less than £2 because why wouldn't you snap up a bargain, or convince ourselves that we'll give up smoking next week because I'm OK at the moment and a few more really can't hurt. Can it? As for that second (or third) glass of wine....

I began this blog because I wanted to take time out and be more creative. I also wanted to appreciate the hand-made when so much in modern society is mass produced. I suppose I wanted to have an element of my life that was 'slower' and also to have an appreciation of the things around me that I had perhaps taken for granted. There is, of course, also the pure satisfaction of having something that you have made yourself.

Earlier this year I have, for the first time, attempted to turn my hand to making, for want of a better phrase, beauty products. I'm now adept at cooking, making clothes, household objects and decorations but had no idea what makes up the products I tend to slather on myself. If skin is our biggest organ and has the ability to absorb, should I not be as keen to understand what I put on my body as what I put in it?

After buying a magazine I turned my hand to making a foot balm and also a body 'butter'. However, the body butter recipe in the magazine listed an 'emulsifying wax' as one of the essential ingredients and, after reading more about this and what they are typically made from, I decided to find a recipe that didn't use this. Essentially, its a wax or fat that has the ability to bind together oil and water in a pleasingly creamy way. I'm sure it does other stuff too.

In making this emulsifying wax-free product it swiftly became apparent that I was not going to get a body butter that resembled anything that you can buy in the shops. So, in using my homemade body butter am therefore placing oil on my skin as a moisturiser as opposed to a lighter mixture of oil and water. Does this matter? If the oil is the moisturising bit, why would you want to water it down? Or does adding water to the oil make it easier to absorb and so am I short-changing myself?

Still curious, I decided to sign up to a course that would teach me how to make oils, ointments and creams. If I wasn't getting the knowledge I sought from a magazine, why not learn from someone who makes these things for a living and have the opportunity for a two-way conversation that is not possible from magazines, books or the Internet? And I suppose this is where I had the equivalent of my house mate's cake moment. 

Now, I'm not a chemist - and if my former Chemistry teacher is reading this, he will readily vouch for me on this front - and I did only attend a very informal workshop that lasted a few hours, but at a very superficial level I learned that most emulsifying waxes are made from Polyethylene Glycol or PEG and, depending on their exact make up, may or may not be something you want to be applying to your body's largest organ.

At the workshop, we had the option of using a vegetable-based emulsifying wax. Although entirely natural, it didn't produce a cream that was as thick and luxurious as the cream produced by using the PEG alternative. I guess this is why cosmetics companies continue to use PEG products, even those that are studiously avoiding using SLSs, parabens and all those other chemicals that some shampoo and shower gel bottles now gladly state that they are free from. This is not to say that the beauty industry isn't heavily regulated and, in theory, the products you buy in the shops are perfectly safe. However, so are the cakes you buy at the bakery, supermarket or farmer's market but that does not mean that you should eat them in large quantities or shouldn't intersperse them with time and plenty of vegetables, salad, fruit and pulses.

Does this mean I'll never use a product containing a PEG from now on? No, it doesn't. In the same way I will still eat cake and drink alcohol in moderation and, inevitably, buy some clothes without thinking of the conditions the people who made them were working under. However, I'm glad I have a slightly better understanding of what goes into beauty products and will be more careful in my purchases in the future.

As they say, forewarned is forearmed and an informed choice is always better than an uninformed choice. I'm just grateful that I have a choice at all.

An oil, an ointment and a cream...

My PEG-free face cream

Banana Bread

I walked through the door yesterday, having had a few days away on a business trip, to find a fruit bowl full of bananas, many of which were looking very much past their best. Although not my first priority - that went to having a power nap having had 3 hours sleep prior to travelling for ten hours in hot and sticky weather - I decided that the best solution for some of the riper fruit was to make banana bread and so that is what I did last night.

I found myself in a similar banana situation at Christmas when I managed to order twice the quantity I needed and only had half the people around to eat them. When I asked my Mum for suggestions as to what to do with the surplus she had suggested banana bread, not least because it freezes well. The advantage of the freezing bit is that you don't just end up eating a load of cake in place of a load of mushy bananas.

Anyway, this great suggestion had clearly stuck with me (well, Mums often know best) and so I dug out my 'usual' recipe, which happens to be the BBC Food Gluten-free Banana Bread one.

It calls for cherries but I only had a few of the glace variety so used these instead.  I also recalled reading that 'most chefs agree' that cutting up to a third of the sugar in a cake has no impact on the flavour, it may just make the cake a little less moist. With all that mashed banana I thought I may be fairly safe on the dryness front so cut the suggested 110g caster sugar to 85g.

With the mixture safely in the tin, the oven still warming and three more rather dark looking bananas I decided to quickly whip up a second loaf. This time I replaced the cherries with some chopped mixed peel and kept the sugar content to 85g.

I had heated the oven to the suggested 180C and set the timer for 1 hour 20 minutes before going to cool off in the garden. I'm not sure if I should have set the oven to a slightly lower temperature because it was on a fan setting or if the lower sugar content meant the cakes cooked a little quicker but I sort of wish I'd taken them out about 5-10 minutes earlier. However, no one here is complaining.  The cherry one was a little less brown so that has gone in the freezer and the citrus one is already proving very popular.

As for the lower sugar content, I can honestly say I think it's perfectly sweet enough and think I'll opt to add less sugar to all my bakes from now on.

Mind you, having done all that there are still about ten nice yellow bananas in the fruit bowl so it'll be bananas chopped onto some sort of cereal for breakfast for the household a few days yet. Unless, of course, my Mum has any other good ideas...?

Focusing on the journey rather than the destination

I can't quite believe June is here already. In part, I began this blog to make myself take time out from work and other responsibilities and do something creative. The blogging isn't the creative bit, it's having something I have made. And to have made something to blog about I must have taken time out to make it. Simple, right? Alas, I feel that 2018 hasn't been the most creative year to date. In fact, it has been pretty stressful.

In an attempt to take time out and have something to blog about I decided to give myself a bit of a break today. I made a conscious decision to put aside the 'to do' list. Instead I put the parasol up in the garden and got out my bits and pieces.

Armed with a mug of coffee and the sound of birdsong it couldn't have been any better. Gradually, as the heat increased, the birds quietened and the noise of the city took over. Really it was just background noise, but to help keep the background noise of my own thoughts at bay I reached for a pair of headphones and the reassuring voice of Stephen Fry. I'm not sure I can imagine anything more relaxing.

Anyway, with about a week to go before I head off on holiday I decided I should make good on a promise I made myself over a year ago - to make some felt pouches to transport jewellery. I first made some as Mother's Day gifts last year and so quickly referred back to the post I made then to jog my memory.

Sorting through the scraps of felt it turned out that I didn't have many pieces big enough so the colour palate was fairly limited but am very pleased with the result. They may not be earth-shatteringly original or hugely creative but this very much feels like a situation where the journey is more important than the destination. And when so many of us are rushing around from one thing to the next it is no wonder that we often end up feeling frazzled and frustrated.

Now I just have to decide what to pack inside them to take away. However, that can wait until next weekend since I am determined to make the most of my now very relaxed state. I really should do this more often...

Whipped Body Butter

I've just had a go at making a whipped body butter. A couple of months ago I picked up an American magazine with lots of 'recipes' for making everything from shampoo to lip balm to candles. My first foray into this new craft-form was to make a foot salve, which I'm really enjoying using.

Having just finished up the last of my shop-bought body lotion I decided to have a go at making a body butter. The recipe in the magazine seemed a little 'involved' so I cast around on the internet for some alternatives. In the end I went a bit freestyle!

Since it's a complete experiment I didn't want to make too much so mixed 23g each of shea butter, cocoa butter, coconut oil and almond oil by heating them in a bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Once they had all melted I removed the bowl from the heat and added a dessert spoon of glycerine (supposed to be the best ingredient for adding moisture to your skin) and then left the mixture to cool.

I then added about 35 drops of essential oil to add fragrance. I chose a mix of sweet orange and bergamot oils. The bowl then went into the fridge to cool for about 20 minutes, by which time it was beginning to set and cloud.

The final step was to 'whip' the mixture. This adds air to make the consistency lighter and easier to apply.

The last step was to scoop it into a tub, saved from a shop-bought product. I'm hoping the uplifting scent of sweet orange and bergamot will help kick-start my mornings.

Charitably creative

Where has the past month gone? I can't believe it's six weeks since I last sat down to write. In that time I have mostly either been entertaining house guests or being entertained as a house guest. It has been a lot of fun and great to reconnect with friends and family.

However, I've not been entirely idle on the creative front. This weekend I provided three gluten-free bakes for a friend's daughter's charity tea stall at the Southbank Bristol Arts Trail. She is raising money for her school charity which is a school in Uganda that takes boys from the streets. Anyway, the whole of south Bristol was buzzing when I dropped the cakes off yesterday lunchtime and I was very tempted to stay but had chores to get back to. Anyway, I was delighted to hear later in the day that the cakes were proving so popular that customers were putting additional donations into the tin once they'd finished eating. What more praise could a cook wish for?!

If you are interested I made a lemon, pistachio and polenta cake, which was positively dripping with lemon syrup; a chocolate and hazelnut cake based on a classic chocolate and almond torte but with ground hazelnuts replacing the almonds and a sneaky splash of kirsch; and a vegan and gluten-free version of a millionaire's shortbread. This takes its inspiration from a date and nut bar with added ginger and desiccated coconut topped with dark chocolate.

In other charitable acts I've been busy knitting children's hats. When helping a friend with her first ever knitting project last autumn I was reminded how much I love knitting and how much I missed it. I was therefore casting around for a project or two. After knitting myself a jacket...

I turned my hands to using up left-over yarn to make children's hats. These are to go into gift boxes for orphans this Christmas made up by my parents' local community. I began with some super chunky wool in red and black but swiftly moved onto yarn from a sack my Mum had been given by a friend. I began with the pink and green but it took me a while to come up with something child-friendly to make with the large quantity of beige yarn. In the end I used the 'teabag' hat pattern (square with a bobble in each of the top corners) to make bear faces, which I'm hoping the younger recipients will like.

With months still to go before the Christmas box deadline, I'm sure the hat count will continue to rise. There are also a few more balls of the beige yarn to go!

But for now, I'm off out to make the most of the sunshine, which has been rather rare in the UK in 2018.

Getting ready for summer

In a fit of optimism and making good use of an extra long weekend away from the office, I've been getting ready for summer.

I dusted off my 'old faithful' trouser pattern once again, this time to make it up in some light-weight cotton, perfect for summer. I'd actually bought the fabric last August but didn't get around to making the trousers immediately. I then thought there was little point making light-weight trousers in the autumn, so put it away and got on with some more seasonal projects.

It has felt like a particularly long and cold winter. We normally only get snow every 7-8 years, so having had 4 lots this winter I am very pleased to finally see the tulips making an appearance in the garden and feeling a distinct warmth in the sun when it does deign to make an appearance. So, to ensure I don't end up leaving it too late with the fabric languishing in the cupboard for yet another season, I decided it was about time these trousers were brought into being.

This is now the fourth pair I have made from the pattern. I absolutely hate buying trousers as I really struggle to find ones that fit, so to find a pattern that is not only incredibly simple to make but that fits without any adjusting is a dream come true. This pair are made from a blue and white striped cotton.

I'd bought 2 metres of the fabric, since it wasn't quite wide enough to fit the leg pattern pieces on side-by-side. I therefore cut out the trouser pieces away from the centre fold of the fabric, leaving me with a decent width, 2 metre long strip of fabric over. I then used this to make a bag for my yoga mat.

My yoga mat doesn't normally stray too far from the spare room, where it gets used most mornings with the help of the fabulous Down Dog yoga app. However, this summer I'm off on a Cornish retreat and the yoga mat will be coming too. The bag has a strap that is long enough to fit diagonally across your body, keeping your hands free. It also has a small pouch pocket for simple essentials. There's even enough room to roll a towel around your yoga mat or fit a water bottle alongside. What's not to love?

It may be another few months until I get to take my yoga mat away with me, or even for the weather to be truly warm enough to wear thin cotton trousers but Sun, I'm ready and waiting for you!