Inspired by eat learn love.....

Inspired by my friends amazing food blog I decided to share an old post from the coffee blog about my mothers fail safe curry recipe and how it can be applied to ANY curry atall. I have passed this on to lots of people who seem to be having great success with it and I am glad to be sharing my wee mothers cooking techniques. Just realised it has been ages since I baked so I defo need to get the finger out and get some good soul food on the go!

Doreen's Fail Safe Masala

2 small Onions

6 tbsp Olive Oil

Cube of Garlic

Cube of Ginger

Tsp of Garam Masala

Tsp of Salt

Tsp of Haldi

Tsp of Chilli powder

Dried Methi

That's it!

Dice the onions into thin slices and add to pot.

Add olive oil and turn pot on a medium/low heat.

Allow onions to go soft and then add your garlic and ginger.

Follow this with all the spices and dried methi.

Allow gentle cooking to fuse all the spices oil and onions.

The smell should indicate ( pure heaven ) and that is it.

This is your basis for your curry.

Add anything you like and water the masala more if you like a thin runny gravy or if you like it thicker keep it the way it is already adding little spoons of water if cooking meat.

The combinations are endless and from that base you can cook any curry you can think of!!

Ok I am SO in love ( yes, love I said ) with Bakerella and constantly check it for baking inspiration in the hope that it makes me wake up AMAZING at baking one day. I am going to try these wee puppies as soon as I get that finger out I was talking about earlier and buy my ingredients. Check out their site for gorgeous and inspiring recipes of all kinds aswell as decorating fun to boot. If I could hold it ad hug the wee rascal! 

Baked Banana French Toast

 

As we all know I love nothing more than a bit of distressed furniture and home interiors and the charisma it emulates is something that I cannot describe apart from with the term, historical, regardless of the era, the year or the previous owners ( be it nobody ) an interior or image that hits you with pure atmosphere is something that I seek out and I now know it is because I want to be a part of it, or have a part of it. I have started to surround myself at home with images that make me feel certain things and I must admit it is beginning to rub off on me. I read another blog everyday called Decor8 and the latest post has beautiful images that were blogged about to celebrate the launch of Muroband - by Jason Grant and I just had to share one of them with you. I urge you to get involved with Decor8 the blog is amazing! Here was my favourite image from that post! Another exquisite image I saw on Poetic Home ties in with the image from Decor8 and it makes me want to recreate this scene in my own home, where I have no idea and also my hubby would be like...... Topknot what the hell do you need all those for? anyways, here they are, enjoy!

 

Inspired by a beautiful ballerina friend and the sirens of the 50's I am wanting to try the roll fringe as I cannot think of a more sexier way to wear your hair, instant glam and teamed with red lips and red nails! wah, watch everyone around you faint. I love all the celebs who have sported this look also, I am feeling totally inspired!

I keep going on to my other half how the wall behind our bed is completely bare ( no idea why? ) and that I would love to do something with it but just cannot decide what. Once committed to something it is indeed a done deal and one I cannot go back on, therefor I have to think about it carefully. I started looking at images of  D.I.Y headboards and picked out a couple that I liked.Which one is your guy's favourite? Let me know!

 Not sure about the safety of this but the idea is stunning!

 Chalkboard paint in a headboard shape is a great idea and messages written all over it sounds ace!

 

And of course an antique style mirror shaped like a headboard is a charming idea also!

Oh a quick note before I log off to watch TINTIN yay! have you seen Julian Hakes latest shoe designs? or should I say architecture? eye catching to say the least and not the bit practical at all I would imagine, however amazing none the less! These beauties deemed The ' Mojito shoe ' are made from one continuous piece that wraps the wearers foot but with no support for the area of the foot between the heel and the ball. Surfacing at London's fashion week, these shoes are going to be the talk of the fashion world for sure!

Ok I am away to watch TinTin and relax for a bit! much love and catch you guys soon!

Topknot

xxx

I'm back from beyond!

Hello ladies! Apologies for my prolonged absence - oh my gosh I've been working so much and as soon as I get home I have just about enough energy to make something to eat and then I'm fast asleep!  To make matters worse, I went over my usage limit for date on my phone, so haven't been able to do quick blog entries, or even check on it at all this week!  I'm glad you are both managing to keep up the blogging, enough for all three of us :) 


It looks like you have both been busy doing some smashing stuff, so I thought I'd share some of my own adventures from last week.  


Here was my first culinary adventure... CAKE POPS!  Don't read any further if you are hoping to see amazing cake pops... you will be sorely disappointed.  If you would like to find out how they turn out when you aren't properly prepared then by all means go ahead and read :)


This is the recipe I (very vaguely) followed, its a lovely website with loads of ideas on it! 

The main ingredients I had to buy - really cheap sponge
 mix, strawberryflavour buttons for the coating,
 lilac food colouring and sprinkles to decorate.

As you can see in the photo, I had to scrape my cake out of the tin - not the best start although luckily it was all going to be mixed up anyway! I had planned on my cake pops being lilac on the inside, but when I mixed the lilac cream cheese frosting into my cake crumbs, it turned a kind of paper-bag brown colour... not terribly appealing to look at! 

How my sponge turned out *the shame*

The rest went pretty well, apart from some sizing issues (read: me getting lazy and trying to do it in a hurry!) The pink coating was fabby, it is very easy to use and looks gorgeous once dry! The big problem was when it came to dipping them in the lovely pink mixture, I hadn't thought at all about how I was going to sit them to dry.  Setting them back on the paper was definitely not an option, it made one huge sticky pink mess all over the place.  I read some other recipes which suggested a styrofoam block wrapped in cellophane to stand them on until they have set.  I think this would work really well and will try to find some before my next attempt.  For the time being I had to make do with an improvised stand - an upside-down egg carton, which worked well for the 6 pops it was big enough to hold! 

My cake balls

Haphazardly stuck with lollypop sticks

*realises there is a problem*
*quickly fixes with an egg box*

I would recommend that anyone who is going to try making cake pops should definitely try to get the other kind of lollypop sticks, like these, as my ones were far too big - they split the pops in half so only a few survived the whole process (crumbled ones taste jut as good as whole ones, for the record).

Two of the better looking finished pops

 I must have been in the mood for cooking this week, as I also made a huge pot of seasonal butternut squash and sweet potato soup.  I peeled and diced all the ingredients (see below) and then added them to a pan with some hot oil to sweat for a bit.  After about 10 minutes I added about 1 litre of vegetable stock, brought it to the boil and then let it simmer for about 45 minutes.  I love pepper and added lashings of white pepper to mine and just a dash of salt.  

Butternut squash, 3 sweet potatoes, 2 small onions
and 2 small rooster potatoes

Once I checked the vegetables were all cooked through I blended it with a handheld food processor, which I somehow managed to melt and the blade attachment came flying off just as I was removing it from the soup! Food processor swiftly binned and soup practically sieved to check for any pieces of metal or plastic! Luckily none was found and the soup tasted fantastic! So easy and healthy and it lasted for three days worth of lunches at work.

My beautifully blended Hallowe'en soup

And finally my beloved pumpkins...

Puking pumpkin (copied from
other pumpkins on t'internet!)

Pukey, Jack Skellington and the Oogie
Boogie Man

This one was a bit more tricky - the dragon
from Sleeping Beauty.  

The sad news is, despite my collection of pumpkins and big bowls of sweets... not even one trick or treater came to our house! Devastated doesn't even cover it! 


Now it's late and I can't find any tights for work tomorrow, so I am off to do a washing.  


Night, Bow xxx