Food

Sticky honey, soy & sesame glazed sausages

Food, Recipes

Forget the shop bought cocktail sausages, these sausages are sweet and sticky, and are always a hit at my family’s dinner parties. They are easy to make, and use store cupboard ingredients. If you try these, you will never want to buy a shop bought cocktail sausage again!

I used a foil tray to save on washing up, as when baked the sauce gets sticky and caramelised. Alternatively, you could line a tin with foil, or just use some elbow grease when it comes to the washing up!

Ingredients

Approximately 20 good quality chipolata sausages or 40 cocktail sausages, I used my local butcher. This amount is good for a dinner party – they’ll be gone in minutes.

1/3 cup of dark soy sauce

1/4 cup of honey

3tbps sesame seeds, plus a pinch extra for garnish.

Drizzle of oil, I used sesame but vegetable oil, or olive oil will be fine too.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees, or 180 fan.

2. Place the sausages, soy sauce, honey, sesame seeds and a drizzle of oil. I used sesame oil – use this sparingly as its quite strong but enhances the sesame taste. Other oils will work fine here too.

3. Mix together well to ensure everything is well coated.

4. Cook in the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the sausages are cooked, and everything is caramelised and sticky. This may take longer if using full sized sausages.

5. Pour into a serving dish, and sprinkle with a few more sesame seeds, and watch them disappear in minutes!

Sticky Sausages

A girl with an appetite for all things creative,

Maria x

Apple & Thyme Sauce

Food, Recipes

Here is a twist on a classic sauce to accompany rich meats such as pork. Apple and thyme is a classic combination.

I made this as an accompaniment to go with a pulled pork dish we served at our Christmas party. We served the pork alongside freshly baked homemade rolls, homemade barbecue sauce, mini roast potatoes, soy honey and sesame sausages  and salad. Of course a party at our house wouldn’t be complete with out a large spread of homemade dessert!

Ingredients

1 large cooking apple, chopped

1tsp dried thyme

1 cup of water

1/4 cup of sugar/ or to taste

Method

1. Chop a large cooking apple into a rough dice. Don’t worry too much if your knife skills aren’t up to scratch, just make sure the pieces are roughly the same size to ensure even cooking.

2. Place the apple, thyme and water in a saucepan and place on a low heat.

3. Cook for about 15 minutes or until the fruit is soft and has broken down, stir it to break down any bigger lumps. Add more water here if needed.

4. Add the sugar, whilst still warm. The reason I add it at the end, rather than before cooking is so you can add sugar to taste. I’m used to using less sugar in my diet so don’t use too much, so likewise you can add less if you like it more tart, and more if you like it sweeter.

5. Serve warm or cold, and garnish with fresh thyme. This also freezes well, so if you have the apples, make extra and defrost ready for when you have a delicious Sunday pork roast.

Hope you like it!

A girl with an appetite for all things creative,

Maria x

Happy Birthday To Me

Baking, Food

Despite feeling terribly poorly for my birthday, I had a lovely time. Yesterday, I went up to London with my mum, dad and sister. We walked from Victoria to Trafalgar Square and had a coffee before meeting up with two family friends. We headed to The National Portrait Gallery, where we saw the Grayson Perry Who Are You? exhibition, I also saw the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition. Both were extremely good.

We then walked to Oxford Street and then went to Covent Garden to have dinner, in Gourmet Burger Kitchen and we then stopped into Paul’s Patisserie and bought an apricot tart to eat for dessert when we all got home. I also popped to the Moomin shop. (unhealthy obsession) and bought some goodies!

It was a lovely, but tiring day.

Today, despite feeling poorly, I had a lovely day at my work experience with Good Food, I then came home to presents and a homemade Chinese and chocolate mousse for dessert made by my lovely mum, and then birthday cake which was made by me and inspired by the Meringue Girls. It was a lovely chilled out evening.

Here is my cake, Chocolate Fudge Cake, with white chocolate ganache icing, meringue kisses and hazelnut praline. Delicious.

Thanks for reading,

A girl with an appetite for all things creative,

Maria x

Culinary Canvas

Food, Inspiration

Lauren Purnell, is an artist I stumbled upon after reading an email from Zizzi’s. She created and shot some promotional images for their new autumn menu. See below.

Lauren Purnell has been creating images out of food over the past year for her project ‘Culinary Canvas’. You can follow her work on her tumblr here. Her work exhibits the beauty of using fresh ingredients, which inspired me to start looking into food markets and fresh produce. Her work is absolutely beautiful and she has worked for clients such as Zizzi’s, Randall Beans, The Juicery Co. , Wildberries Marketplace, a local grocer in Arcata, California and many others. To me eating well is important, and with current emphasis on fair-trade, and eating local produce to support farmers and producers this reflects in her work, and gives out an important message in a creative way. As well as photographing in markets, I also want to take produce into the studio and photograph it.

Some of my favourites.

A girl with an appetite for all things creative,

Maria x

Emily Blincoe

Food, Inspiration, Photography

I stumbled across this photographer on one of my favourite sites This Is Colossal. I use this site when looking for inspiration to create work etc. Born in Austin, Texas Blincoe finds “inspiration in faces, shapes, colors, light and quiet little moments. most days you can find me wandering in the tall grass somewhere between austin and nashville with my dog, eleanor. ”

I love all of her work, but particularly her arrangements that she creates with food. She selects her food types and meticulously arranges them by colour. “Blincoe collects every color permutation of tomatoes, oranges, eggs, and even candy and then sorts them into groups and gradients for each image.” This inspired me to take my own images of singular food types in Borough Market, and I hope to take this into the studio, and perhaps do some similar arrangements as Blincoe. The images I have taken in Borough Market, try and capture one singlular food item in each frame, and I feel a series of these would be really successful, and I could experiment in the studio also with these same food types and compare them.

See more of Emily Blincoe’s work here.

A girl with an appetite for all things creative,

Maria x

Fireworks Night

Baking, Food, Recipes

On the 8th November, we had our local firework display. I hadn’t been to this in a few years as I was always at university, but luckily I was home this weekend. So I asked mum if we could do what we used to always do, and have a dinner party after the display with close friends. On the Friday, I got up and made homemade chilli con carne, two huge pots of it. As always we do too much. I also made some chocolate pastry for a tart I wanted to make which was a recipe from Tom Kerridge’s series ‘Best Ever Dishes’. Click here to view and make the recipe yourself. I used the pastry recipe, and the chocolate filling recipe, but changed up the decoration, as I wanted to keep it to an autumnal theme bearing in mind the occasion. This, for me is the great thing about cooking. You can take a recipe and use it as a base and experiment and change up the decoration to give it your own personal creative flare, make it your own.

Using the spare egg whites, left over from the pastry I decided to make some meringue mushrooms. I had an idea influenced by the Meringue Girls, and also Rachel Khoo’s recipe to make a ‘forest floor’. So I piped out mushrooms and dusted the tops with cocoa powder. I then assembled the bases and tops using a bit of left over ganache, once they were baked. I assembled the tart the next day.

The Saturday afternoon after our trip to London, we prepared some mini roast potatoes with rosemary, homemade guacamole, homemade salsa, and served all this with a salad, green beans, rice and sour cream with some fresh bread from Bread Ahead that we bought at the market earlier in the day. I then assembled my tart, by pouring the ganache in the case, adding the mushrooms, and added some crushed up pastry (trimmings) and some crushed amaretti biscuits to look like soil, and added some tiny mint leaves. Because of the amaretto liquor, this would go great as a dessert or a slice with coffee. It is rich and indulgent. Mum also made her signature lemon meringue pie, which always goes down a treat. After a few bottles of wine, some lovely food and lots of conversation with dear friends, they left and we headed to bed after clearing up.

Below is my tart.

A girl with an appetite for all things creative,

Maria x

Borough Market 8th November 2014

Food, Photography

I revisited Borough Market on the 8th November, after reflecting on the images I took on my previous trip. I figured I wanted to continue with my theme of photographing singular ingredients and displaying these for an exhibition project for my third year degree show. I took some more successful images to add to my portfolio, and will continue to visit and shoot here to extend the collection.

Again the sights, smells and atmosphere was incredible, and it reminded me of my love of food, and cooking and the feeling it gives me.

I ate some bread and another doughnut, from Bread Ahead, and have considered booking myself on to one of there cooking schools. Got in to the christmas spirit with a warm mulled apple juice and headed to Tower of London to see the poppies for Remembrance Sunday. This too was incredible and ended a lovely day out in London.

In the evening, I went to my local firework display and had family friends over in the evening for food and drink, which is a regular occurrence in our house. You can read about this here.

Below are some of the images shot from this day at the market.

A girl with an appetite for all things creative,

Maria x

Bakes and Cakes Show

Baking, Food, Inspiration

On Saturday the 25th October I went to the BBC Good Food Bakes and Cakes show at the Design Centre Islington. The day involved interviews with bakers and chefs, book signings, demonstrations, master classes, competitions, food stalls and a theatre where celebrity chefs did a demonstration.

We arrived at around 10am and began our day with a book signing with Mary Berry, she was lovely and sometimes it’s easy to forget that we are all human and we are all ‘normal’. My mum being my mum commented on her dress at the Pride of Britain awards. We then continued to listen to some interviews/question and answers with Eric Lanlard, I also watched him do a demonstration later on in the day. We browsed the food stalls and bought some sweet and savoury treats to eat. A delicious sausage bap, macaroons, brownies and meringues from the Meringue Girls.

We then sat and watched a question/answer interview with John Whaite (Bake Off winner 2012) , who was extremely funny, and had a good relationship with his friend and interviewer Jo Wheatley (Bake Off winner 2011). We then watched a demonstration by the Meringue Girls, who I had the pleasure of meeting. Read more about this here.

The day ended with watching Mary Berry in the Bakes and Cakes Theatre, where she made a chocolate roulade, and some apple muffins. Chocolate roulade is a family favourite in our home, we have it every year on christmas eve. It is a tradition, and one I hope to carry on in the future.

My mum and I then went to dinner in the evening, to Gourmet Burger Kitchen. I had the Salvador, a pork and chorizo burger, with avocado, garlic mayo, fiery chipotle ketchup, crispy onions, in a brioche bun. Finished off with my favourite oreo cookie milkshake.

After a long, but thoroughly enjoyable day we headed home and crashed out on the sofa reading my new Mary Berry cookbook.

A girl with an appetite for all things creative,

Maria x

Meringue Girls

Baking, Food, Inspiration

My instagram feed is full of all things food related, or photography related mixed in with the occasional selfie. (Probably more selfies than I’d like to admit) I follow David Loftus, who photographs for Jamie Oliver, and through this stumbled across a company called the Meringue Girls, founded by trained chefs Alex Hoffler and Stacey O’Gorman after working together in a restaurant in Hackney. “We bonded over our love of sweet things, especially meringues”. They make brightly coloured meringue ‘kisses’ in an assortment of flavours. They are stocked in Selfridges and Harvey Nichols, as well as working with a variety of other clients. They also do food styling. 

I was lucky enough to meet them at the BBC Good Food Cakes & Bakes show, which you can read about here. I watched them do a demonstration, and spoke to them afterwards and showed them a cake I made which was inspired by their work. I am now doing some baking with them in January at their bakery in Hackney. I’m super excited for this, and hopefully it may result in a career in the food industry somehow, as I feel right now this is all I want to be doing! Food and cooking relaxes me, and is one of the only activities where I forget the stress of reality and feel in a world of my own.

A girl with an appetite for all things creative,

Maria x

Borough Market

Food, Photography

On the 24th October I decided to take a trip to Borough Market after seeing some amazing doughnuts on Tom Kerridge’s ‘Best Ever Dishes’. As part of one of my university projects I wanted to do something food related, as this is what I’m passionate about and could be targeted towards a possible career area.

My senses were overwhelmed by smells and sights. I was so consumed by the amazing produce and different foods that I came away with an experience full of hope and excitement for my future, but very few photographs for my project. Which luckily for me meant I needed to go again. It gave me a chance to reflect on the photographs I took, and what I needed to do and think about on my next trip, to improve my images.

Here are two images that I particularly liked. I thought about developing this theme of photographing single produce.

A girl with an appetite for all things creative,

Maria x