Soup of the Day

As August has now been declared to be a miserable and rainy winter month (by me), I decided to make my first soup of the season.

Soup of the Day: Roasted Butternut squash with cracked black pepper. Velvety and smooth with a natural sweetness from the butternut squash, laced with the zing of fresh black pepper. Heavenly.

Friday Night Fireworks

Friday Night in July and August is fireworks night down at Bournemouth Pier. The last few weeks we have only listened to the bang bang bang from our living room so this week we decided to have a wonder down to have a look. They only lasted ten minutes but they were very pretty. I still jump when they go bang but that is because I have never really been a fan of loud bangs...in fact, they scare the living daylights out of me, but the visuals and the smell made up for it.

All the Colours of a Rainbow

What is it about a rainbow that makes me smile? I think the main reason is that a rainbow is very unexpected and it is something that you don't see everyday. I always find myself exclaiming out loud 'oh, look! A rainbow!'...even if there is isn't anybody else around me. The exclamation is followed by the smile and then I reach for my camera to capture the moment. And I am still very thankful for instant photograph availability with the technology we have. The older generations are wrong to dismiss it (not all of them of course) but when I am at work I hear it every day..'oh all this technology is more of a hinderance' ...'grumph grumph grumph' ...while they still cash their cheques refusing to use the cash machines because they don't 'trust' machines...'trust a machine'...what a load of rubbish! Anyway, back to rainbows. What I was getting at before my digressing is that I don't know what I would do without a camera in my pocket. I am a visual person, taking in all my knowledge visually. I think another joy of a rainbow is that it is something beautiful after the grim and miserable rainstorm.

This photo that I captured from my window when I was living in kent really demonstrates what I am saying. It visually shows a difference in the light above and below the prism colours as though the rainbow is fighting back the darkness to let in the light. As far as the rainbow colours go...well they aren't my kind of colours, they are too bright and bold, but am I right in saying that a rainbow spectrum includes all the colours and tones of colour? "All the colours of a rainbow" ... but although I don't think that they are great colours I do think they show up brilliantly against a dark background, providing the 'wow, look, a rainbow' effect.

Don't you hate recipe books that don't have pictures in them!?

Making Il Pesto

Take one basil plant

De-leaf it so that you have...

about two handfuls.

Take a handful of pine nuts (boy are they expensive) and place on a baking tray. You need to place them in the oven to warm them through to enhance the flavour. Do not toast them!!

In the meantime pop the basil leaves into a 'voory vorry' (food processor) with...

half a clove of garlic (the picture is of half a bulb of garlic...don't put that much in...eek).

Voory Voory!! It should look like this afterwards.

Now that your pine nuts have warmed through (Not toasted), place them in the processor with the basil and garlic mixture and 'voory voory' them together.

This mixture is a kind of stodgy mush. Never fear, it will get better with a few extra steps.

Grate a handful of Parmigiano Reggiano (parmesan cheese)

Pop it into your mixture with olive oil and stir (a teaspoon is good for this). There should be enough olive oil in there to make the sludge into a gloopy pesto-ey consistency. Don't forget to season with the salt and the pepper. If you want it more cheesy then add more cheese... counteract the consistency with more olive oil.

This is the consistency you are looking for....mmmm....it smells like pesto now! This will keep in the fridge for quite a long time. Make sure there is enough olive oil to keep it moist. The taste will mature with age!

Serve with pasta (spaghetti is good). Last night I made risotto bianco and served it with that. Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum!! It is also good with gnocchi!

First Attempt

After writing my last blog post I walked over to my sketchbook packed bookshelf and grabbed an old sketchbook that I knew had empty pages in the back of it. The reason I did this and picked this specific sketchbook is because it is a sketchbook that I have had for years and years, and more specifically it is from when I was living in Italy. I have only just rediscovered it now after our last flat move. It was at the bottom of my wicker chest that never got looked at, just moved from flat to flat. I was reminiscing about when I lived in Italy and my trips to Tuscany where I fell in love with sunflowers. So it was quite fitting that a picked up a sketchbook from that time of my life. These sketchbooks were like gold dust to me.

In Milan there wasn't anywhere that sold proper sketchbooks. All that were available were sketch pads with tear out sheets. I wanted a spiral bound, hard cover sketchbook. This sketchbook was brought back from American for me by a friend, and although it wasn't hard cover it was spiral bound, and in that instance it did me just fine. And so the other night I just started drawing with my favorite fine tip pen, which too brought back memories of when I used to draw as a teenager. I would sit for hours and draw small intricate pictures of spirals and patterns, some of which I found in this sketchbook.

I started drawing my sunflower and it took quite a while to draw the middle bit, made up of teeny tiny circles. I have to say my eyes are definitely not what they used to be...there was definitely a lot of eye straining (yes, I have glasses I should have been wearing...but trying to find ones glasses kind of detracts from the inspired sporadic get up and draw of the situation). I miss being able to sit for hours and just draw. Now work and washing and dinner and cleaning and tidying etc kind of get in the way...and of course the tiredness from doing all these mundane everyday things is also a killer. Last night I finished off the petals of the sunflower and I have to say I am quite happy with how it has all turned out. Not bad for a little drawing at the last minute. I wonder where is my little sunflower journey going to take me next?

Sunflowers

When I was growing up in Italy I had a complete obsession with sunflowers. I think the love arose from trips to Tuscany, where sunflower fields are plentiful, miles and miles of yellow heads following the sun. I think the colour was my main draw, the vibrant yellow echoing the suns brightness against the blue Tuscan sky. I drew numerous pictures of sunflowers, painted hundreds of sunflower paintings and decorated boxes with sunflower patterns, taking the yellow flower colour and putting it onto a blue background. Sadly I forgot about this love of sunflowers, and it wasn't until a trip to The Eden Project that the I was reminded of my sunflower obsession. There were these wilted, quite sad looking sunflowers in the Mediterranean biome, yet they still stood out amongst the dry olive green and brown plants around them. Now I think I am going to embark on a mini sunflower project. I don't have any of my old drawings or any sketchbooks with sunflowers in them...they all must be in storage in Italy, so now I will create a new collection of sunflower goodies! I want to grow some too, although I think I have missed the growing window. I will investigate and see!