favourite foods day 10 another one!

This is an enduring favourite from childhood: smoked haddock with new potatoes and peas. (I got a little carried away with painting enthusiasm today ; ))

favourite foods day 10 encore

A favourite to eat out in local Turkish restaurants: the wonderful imam bayildi! I first read about this dish in Claudia Roden's "Middle Eastern Food", which is a fascinating combination of recipes and the history of them.

favourite foods day 10

Humus and crudites: yummy for lunch, especially with some of the fab sesame seed encrusted bread that can be bought from Greek or Turkish shops near where I live : )

favourite foods day 9

Russets are my favourite apples, especially with a chunk of red leicester cheese and some oat cakes! Russets have a completely unique taste, and I like the slightly rough texture of the skin - makes a change from the smooth shininess of most other apples.

favourite foods day 8

A favourite pudding I am looking forward to enjoying in a month or so: the wonderful summer pudding : )

favourite foods day 7

An odd sounding, and truly delicious pasta dish: farfalle a la genovese (I think that's the right name!), which consists of the lovely butterfly wing shaped farfalle pasta cooked with chopped up new potatoes (I like to use red-skinned ones for the colour), and green beans, all mixed together with chopped herbs, pesto and a dash of cream (although if the dish is just for me I usually leave out the cream) : )

favourite foods day 6

Here is a favourite comfort food: carrot and butter bean soup, with sunflower seed bread. Perfect for when I am ill or home very late! The soup is made by Baxter's, and highly recommended : )

Favourite foods days 4 and 5

Here are the finished asparagus and lemon meringue pie images! Life has been very hectic for the past week or so, plus I have been painting v-e-r-y slowly indeed. Today I made good starts on the next three, so hopefully one at least will appear here tomorrow : )

Fab new palette

Yesterday I treated myself to this beautiful new palette, spotted recently in the window of the very wonderful http://www.cornelissen.com/. It is my reward for completing the artwork for my advertisement in the Directory of Illustration 25! I love the shapes of the paint wells, and that they are so deep, and well separated from each other: )

favourite foods day 4

Today I worked on several paintings, and have not yet finished any of them! Here are the next two favourite foods as "work in progress", which show how minimal the underdrawing is for my paintings. I've discovered that my water colours have a lot more life if I paint them, as opposed to colour in something I've drawn up in detail first.

Favourite foods day 3

Organic and free range egg from Farmer's Market, boiled for 3 minutes : )

Favourite foods day 2

Green salad: perfect to go with pizza, or with most things. This one has frilly lettuce, chicory, fennel and greek cucumber, all topped off with some Newman's Own classic salad dressing : ). I do sometimes make my own salad dressing, but Paul Newman's variety is fab, so I often take the lazy option!

Gardening and eating

Yesterday I was having technical difficulties with re-sizing, etc, so did not post the final painting from the gardening project: the beautiful white clematis montana that graces my garden in the spring : )

My new blog project is my favourite foods, and here I am starting with home made pizza : ) It is so very easy to make the dough base, just requires a little planning in advance, and then I can have pizza with not very much cheese, and heaps of lovely fresh vegetables. Asparagus is a great addition in the spring.

gardening project day 11

I think those plastic plant pots are improved enormously by being given a coat of ordinary household emulsion, in a lovely bright colour left over from decorating. Weather permitting, I am planning to do some more this coming bank holiday weekend.

gardening project day 10

When I went to look at the watering can to refresh my memory for painting it, I discovered that bindweed had looped prettily through it! Bindweed has such pretty heart-shaped leaves. However, due to it's strangling of everything else growing behaviour, I spend lots of time pulling out bindweed - no chance of eradicating it completely because it invades from the railway cutting which backs onto my garden.

gardening project day 9

These gorgeous purple tulips are growing in a tub in the front yard. The bulbs were another fab birthday present last autumn: )

gardening project day 8

The hanging basket I can see from kitchen window does have some greenery growing in it: weeds!

gardening project days 6 and 7

Hooray! I've been able to upload these two images : )

The pruners are antique: they came from my Grandad, and I have seen identical pair in a museum of gardening. They are the best: I've had modern pruners, which have not lasted more than a couple of years, unlike Grandad's which still do sterling service in my garden : ).

The flower pot was knocked over sometime during the winter - probably by a squirrel! Fortunately, the geranium, or to be strictly correct, perlagonium, is very forgiving, and will recover now I have replanted it.

Gardening project day 6

Hmm.. Well, I have another image ready to post, and blogger won't let me upload an image at the moment!

gardening project day 5

This is the winter flowering jasmine, which brightens up dull December days with yellow flowers : ). At this time of year it needs to be pruned, and I can never remember how to do it! I'll have to ask gardener and cartoonist Chichi http://chichiparish.blogspot.com/ for some advice.