Plaster Party

It was my sister's 18th birthday today. She had some people round for food. My parents are having a load of work done on their house and the most convenient available party space was a room that's recently been stripped down, knocked through and freshly plastered. I think they were a bit embarrassed about it, but I thought it looked pretty suave in a continental, unpolished, minimalist sort of way. I told them not to bother with the new floorboards. Here's the birthday girl by the way:

 

Enjoy being an adult Vanessa.

Hair today...

...gone tomorrow

Hurrah for a holiday!

We hit the Grand Union Canal with 7 lovely people and 69 feet of Narrow Boat Joy and took on the wild waters between Weedon Bec and Great Linford. We played bananagrams, ate cooked breakfasts, pulled off some amazing manoeuvres, read books, got sunburnt, held baby animals, moored up, fed ducks, ate out, ate on, ate in and ate ate ate. And Malc navigated all 2,813 m of the Blisworth Tunnel with just one little bump.

Between busy times of intense relaxation we found time for a spot of food experimentation in the form of: lamb and mint kebabs, stewed strawberries, lavender champagne and some more elderflower cordial.

Elderflower: Mission Accomplished

So bottling stage two is now complete and the 5 day brew proves very popular. We bottled almost 10 litres in total, and one bottle was drunk within hours by 4 of us over dinner.

N+L The Preview

Just a glimpse of Nay and Luke's beautifully elegant and fun wedding from South Wales last week. More on that coming soon.

No spend month update. The End

So No Spend Month is up and we over spent... by quite a lot. Even taking off a number of the grey area spending items from our final total we went £16.27 over our £120 limit. In reality we spent £253.57 plus bills. And we got away with other things, such as eating for free at our parents.

Still, we must have made some positive changes because it feels odd now to spend "normally". We have increased our awareness of what we spend. And there are very few things saved on our "to buy as soon as we're allowed to spend money again" list (they are: fresh fruit and veg, garlic, socks and bleach).

We've been away...

... shooting another wedding. It was great fun- can't wait to share it, so expect a sneaky preview coming up shortly.

Nay & Luke

 

Steeping in Process

Having lugged home a large quantity of lemons (for a very small price), tripled the recipe, hunted for citric acid and then had citric acid and a vast amount of sugar delivered by my mum, the cordial is now steeping. We'll see it in 24 hours.

It'll all be worth it

We collected a load of elderflower heads today, with the intention of using it to make cordial. Unfortunately, greenfly like elderflower even more than we do. Having recently washed all our potted herbs to prevent an infestation we didn't want these newcomers to ruin all our hard work, or our cordial for that matter, so we rinsed the whole lot, stem by stem, in the bath. Fortunately the debris looks pretty (see above) and our bathroom now has a pleasant floral aroma.

*Nom & Malc's photostream

*Nom & Malc's photostream on Flickr.

Pip & Monty's page is now bursting at the seams in our portfolio section.

[Menu Thoughts] Breakfast

Banana, Weetabix, coffee, milk and honey smoothie. Serve on the sofa.

[Menu Thoughts] Tajine

Take 2: our second attempt at this chicken tajine was much more successful (the first attempt ended in a broken tajine and the meal being finished for our guests in a casserole dish). 

Basic recipe: coat 8 chicken drums in flour and spices, brown off in tajine on the hob (use a heat diffuser!). Soften some sliced onion with garlic and herbs, then add chicken stock, chicken, some veg, lentils and any herbs that you fancy. Bring it all to the boil and shove in the oven at 150ºC for about an hour.

Serve with slices of preserved lemon, olives and rice.

Bring on the 'Shine

Summer Goals 2011

make wicked ice cream 

(get the ice cream maker "back")

go camping

make ice lollies 

do some photo cools

    -more pics of people

    -at least one family shoot

go for nightly walks

listen to the book of the week

cycle for a picnic

listen to an album

visit lots of friends

make good use of the garage

wear good clothes

go swimming

have a dress date

grow some of the grow list (lambs lettuce, mushrooms, lavender...)

have lots of dinner guests

[Menu Thoughts] Lots of Cheese

Cheese with coffee grounds and honey (a la Jamie Oliver).

Homemade pizza with tomato and red pepper puree, goat's cheese, almond stuffed sliced olives, topped and crust-stuffed with cheddar.

Flowers

Mum sent me some flowers today from her garden. I washed my entire "garden" in the kitchen sink. 

THE best sound of summer?

Ice cracking as it falls into your drink.

21 Again

Mum threw a garden party to celebrate her big birthday. She made a tun of tiny cakes so that everyone could try a bit of each and most people didn't stop at one, particularly with the mini-meringues (topped with chocolate paste).

There was a hammock and two sofas in the garden to lounge on. We decorated with swathes of bunting and a spot of reused tissue paper...

 

Drank a fair bit of Pimms...

Milled around chatting...

And did a spot of photo boothing in the summer house!

Hana's Birthday

This is a little gift I made for a friends birthday present- I enjoyed how the wrapping turned out, so I figured I'd share it. It was really simple: just sew two buttons onto a hankie, then stitch one stitch on each side and corner (going round in order), pull tight to enclose the gift, then wrap the thread off in a figure of eight around the buttons.

Happy Birthday Miss K. Hope the sun shines on your champagne!

[Menu Thoughts]

 Thai prawn curry: blend 1 red pepper from a jar, a tea spoon of green thai curry paste, some thai basil leaves, one clove of garlic, some fresh coriander and a teaspoon of tomato puree. Shove some frozen prawns in a pan, then cook in the blended sauce for a short minute before adding some coconut milk. Serve over udon noodles garnished with a spring of thai basil.

Fresh mint ice cubes.

Coffee and ice-cream with biscuit crumble topping.