In a Pickle at Christmas

House Doctor Food Factory Jars filled with Italian Pickles in Oil

One of the things I love about modern life is that we get inspiration from all over the globe, but at Christmas this equates to having your cake, everyone else's cake and eating it all after a huge turkey dinner. As if Christmas cake, pudding, yule log, trifle and mincepies aren't enough, we then make sure we have panetonne, stollen and fortune cookies in the house. Lovely .... but there are limits.

So this year I have been making some changes and concentrating on the savoury bits. After all, everyone in my family professes to prefer the Boxing Day cold cuts to any other part of Christmas feast. The gravalax, the turkey and stuffing sandwich (with hamisha gherkins, cranberry and mayonnaise or it just isn't the real deal), the Christmas ham...

So to keep the multiculturalism alive and well, I decided to resurrect a recipe an Italian chef of ours used to make to accompany cold platter lunches in one of the restaurants we had when I was growing up. In my book, far better than a pickled onion, she used to make pickled vegetables by blanching them in hot wine vinegar and then keeping them covered in olive oil with herbs and garlic. As long as you keep them below the oil, they keep for a good long time, but frankly I am not expecting ours to last much longer than boxing day. They are good made a week in advance but a few days will do so you still have time!

Ingredients

Orla Kiely Extras for the Ultimate Allotment Chic

1 litre white wine vinegar
1 litre water
2 tablespoons sea salt
500ml extra virgin olive oil - perhaps a little more to cover your veg
5 or 6 cloves of garlic finely sliced
Sprigs of woody herbs such as thyme, sage, rosemary and / or bay for flavour
1kg vegetables

The vegetables can be whatever you fancy - the Italians do this with all sorts of veg from char grilled aubergines to peppers or wild mushrooms. I've gone with a mix of courgettes, red peppers for Christmas colour, fennel bulb because I love it, romesco Cauliflower because I though little florets would look like mini Christmas trees and carrots. Shallots might be good too.

Prepare your vegetables in bite size pieces and have some sterilized jars (put them through the dishwasher on a hot wash if you can) to hand. Alternatively if they are for your own use and you are planning to eat them all up soon, you can do them in and covered container and keep them in the fridge. Place the olive oil, herbs and garlic in a mixing bowl. You can add chilli too if you fancy.

Bring the water, vinegar and salt to the boil on the hob. Add your vegetables and simmer for 3 minutes. Then strain with a slotted spoon or through a colander, shaking off the excess vinegar. Mix into the bowl with the oil and herbs whilst hot and they will absorb some of the oil and flavour immediately. Finally, jar the up, making sure all the vegetables are kept below the oil and tapping the sides of the jar to release any trapped air.It is the fact that the oil keeps the vegetables away from the air which really preserves them, so put a little less in the jar and a little more oil if needs be. Seal and label the jars. Keep in a cool, dark place for a week or up to three months.

If you keep the vinegar / water mix you can top it up to make a couple more batches but you can't keep it for ever. The olive oil, however, ends up flavoured with all the herbs so is great for dressings after you have eaten the veg.

Addendum

I have given some of these jars as gifts to hosts who have invited us over the Christmas party season. I also like potting up some pansies and cyclamen in a simple pot as a small gift as it adds some nice autumn colour to the garden. I was going to write another post about this, but the life of a retailer at Christmas can be hectic, so here is a quick picture instead! Have a great Christmas!

That's a Wrap, Folks! Anyone for a Double?

Paper Angels by Jurianne Matter

They say that presentation is everything. Mind you, they say all sorts of things. Still, I'm rolling with this

Gnome Candles by Rice, Wine Glass by House Doctor

particular phrase this Christmas and getting the wrapping done early so that rather than throwing paper and tape at gifts on Christmas Eve, distracted by the smell of wine mulling, urchins singing carols and the gentle sound of snow falling (obviously, we live in a novel by Dickens), I am instead, wrapping a few presents as and when I can of an evening. Besides - it gets you in the mood.

My secret weapon in the quest for beautiful presents this year is some double sided wrap by House Doctor. I've found that folding back one or two edges over to reveal the pattern on the other side, and sometimes wrapping at a jaunty angle, is a great alternative to using ribbon. It takes a little practice and experimentation to get going, but I am really pleased with the results. People who are getting two small parcels get to have one wrapped one way and one the other.

I like small gifts at Christmas - things that friends can use and consume - and making them look special from the outside just shows that extra little thought and attention.
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House Doctor Wrap, House Doctor Star Candle Holders

Paper Stars Made from Strips by Rice, Copper Lidded Box  by House Doctor

Christmas Tree Lights by Think Gadgets

Owl Decoration and Mercury White Glass Bauble by House Doctor

Here Today, Scone Tomorrow

There's snow hope, apparently, we are due for a white washing. I don't mind at all as I have a fondness for

knitwear and snowball fights, but to me, snow days are baking days too. We grew up in the countryside with one of the best snowing slopes in the south west on our land. Kids from all over the valley would come to play on that slope, which turned into a lethal near-vertical ice sheet from over use.

But the best thing was when twilight began to descend and the bulk of my friends would start wandering home, mum would have baked scones for those of us left over. With these thoughts and the upcoming Christmas season in mind, I've put together a fruit scone swirl recipe, with a little cinnamon, nutmeg and mixed peel in the recipe to give it an extra seasonal kick. Now I just need it to snow so I can bake it again and take some to my niece's friends when they are sledging in our local park.

Ingredients:

For the basic scone mix:
400g self raising flour
100g butter
40g sugar
120ml milk approximately

For the fruity filling
80g butter
80g soft brown sugar
180g dried fruit e.g. sultanas, raisins, mixed peel
1 grated desert apple
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 nutmeg grated

Preheat the oven to 210 degrees centigrade
Makes about 15 scones

Put the butter, flour and sugar in a mixing bowl and crumb together. Using the finger tips of one hand, gather the crumbs into a soft dough as you add the milk slowly. Don't add it all at once. The dough should be workable so don't add all the milk if it feels too wet to roll out!

Roll the dough out into a square approximately 35x35cm on a well floured surface so that it is easy to roll later when needed.

In a small pan, heat the butter and sugar for the filling gently. Keep stirring it so the sugar dissolves in but doesn't burn. Bring it to a gentle simmer for 1 minute. Add all the fruit and spices, then spread this mix over the scone base. Roll the whole lot into a sausage. Firm down the "seam" when you reach the end, then cut the sausage into 2cm slices, each one being one of the scones.

Place on a buttered baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. You may need to turn the tray for the last 5 minutes to make sure they cook evenly.

Picture credits
Vintage by Hemmingway Carnival Cake Tins
Rice DK Tray

A Bright and Colourful Christmas by Rice

Is it too much pickled herrings and schnapps, or do the designers at Rice get more mad with each passing year? Rice are such a great company to work with - their staff are fun, friendly and full of well meant advice - not your run of the mill sales people. I guess it comes from being such a fun, creative company with a strong ethical base, and so I now think of the people we deal with there as friends. Together, we have been putting together a competition to run on Lucy at Attic24's blog and below are some of the photos which have come out of today's shoot.

I say Rice are always full of good advice, the one thing which turns out to be not quiet true is that the little paper stars used to decorate the plates below are "easy to make". Thanks for that one, Helene - it turns out they require the paper mastery of an origami expert. Once they are made up, they look beautiful so, all in all, I am glad I persevered. I think we might turn them into a drinking game ... break out the schnapps.

Photos contain the following Stock:

Rice Christmas Melamine Bowls, Cups and Plates. 

Christmas Paper Star

Gnome Toy Basket

Happy Home Colourful Interiors Book

Gnome Candle

Set of 3 Cake Tins

Gift Wrapping Decorative Bird

Glass Candle Votive

Paper Chain Decoration

Strips for Making Complicated but Beautiful Decorations ... Best Used to Challenge Your Friends

A Recipe for Hot Air and Puff

We know the French think their food is the best. We know they think it because they are forever telling the world it is so. How they stay so thin eating cream, butter and cheese and drinking wine all the time none of the rest of us know, although I suspect the secret is strong black coffee, Gauloise and plenty of gesticulation and philosophical argument whilst not actually eating the beautiful pastry set on the plate before them. In the spirit of cross cultural understanding, I have decided, this week, to try making my own puff pastry. After all, how difficult can it be?

It turns out to be quite difficult indeed. Hours of rolling, folding and refrigerating. Perhaps this is the work out that burns off the calories of the 50% butter pastry. Is this the real secret of how the French stay thin? The effort which goes into their food makes you appreciate even a small mouthful of it? Message us on Facebook if you want details on how to make puff - I'm no expert so will point you in the direction of someone who is. Or just buy some good quality butter puff pastry in order to make this Tarte Tatin. But maybe run to the shops to work off the calories instead.

Tarte Tatin

Ingredients

6 medium desert apples e.g. Cox's

Juice 1/2 lemon

120g butter

200g caster sugar

250g puff pastry

Flour for rolling

Method

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees centigrade. Peel, core and halve the apples. Squeeze over the lemon juice and toss quickly and put them in the fridge whilst you prepare the rest. 

Use a pan approximately 10 inches in diameter which can go on the stove top and in the oven. Evenly cover the bottom of the pan in the butter, then sprinkle the sugar over the top. Add the half apples, round side down. Roll out the pastry so it is slightly large than your pan, so that when you lay the pastry over the top of the apples, it comes and in or so up the side of the pan. You want to trim this rim so it is fairly even all round - once the tarte is cooked and inverted this becomes a crunchy, caramel soaked rim of loveliness. Put a couple of slits in the pastry at the centre of the pan to release the air.

Now, this is the magic bit - on the stove top you turn the butter, sugar and some of the apple juice into caramel. I used a medium heat - the recipe I worked from said a "fierce heat" but I think you could easily burn the apples. I put it on the stove top for about 15 minutes. The pastry puffed up with the expanding air and I kept sniffing the steam coming through the slits to make sure I couldn't smell burning. Once the pan was up to a good heat I lowered the temperature a little too to keep the apples frying and caramelising without burning. I think you'd have to be careful not to use a thin pan too, but instead one with a heavy base so that the heat disperses fairly evenly to the apples.

After this, it is a case of baking in the oven for 20 minutes (keeping an eye still on the pastry, and then turning out onto a serving platter straight away whilst the caramel is still hot and soft. The buttery pastry soaks up all the caramel apple juice. It was slightly nerve-racking to make because of the unseen caramel making, but other than that, with shop bought puff pastry, would be relatively simple. And, it turns out, absolutely delicious. Vive la France!

Photo Credits:
Geronimo serving platter by BlissHome
Indus mango wood bowl by Nkuku

Some Autumn Colour

Autumn is one of my favourite times, especially on a cool crisp day. Here are a few photographs to get you in the mood from sunny Bristol. The first features the shadow of Brunel's Suspension Bridge.

All images copyright Mark Fletcher - director, fig1.co.uk

Mary Berry and a Dangerous Game of Russian Roulade

Challenging Mary Berry could be a dangerous thing. If you managed to rile her so much she decided to be

rid of you once and for all, surely her method of choice would be with poison. Well, she would hardly batter you with a Battenberg would she? No, in the ultimate bake-off, she would serve you a delicate array of treats in a macabre game of Russian Roulade.  Would the profiterole she proffered be perfect or poisonous? Would her luscious ladyfingers actually be laced with lethal ingredients. Would her angel cake have you visiting the heavenly host?  Surely her poison of choice would be arsenic - the almond flavour would go so well with a drop of finest rose water. You would consider resisting those sweet treats, but her dainty perfections would be too much temptation in this most macabre of bake-offs.

I know it sounds like I fell asleep during the bake-off and woke up to Midsomer Murders. This morbid obsession with an entirely fictional version of Mary Berry is born from a near sacrilegious task I have set myself - I have decided to alter one of her recipes. The thing is, it is bonfire night and I wanted to make something with a toffee apple theme to take for the various people I'm meeting at our local fire in the park. Mum has been going on about a molassesy ginger cake Mary Berry makes, and so I have decided to alter her recipe, and now the idea is in my head, I just can't stop.

The original recipe is here, but instead of the crystalised ginger in syrup, I added some caremelised apple cubes instead. To make these I took 800g of desert apples cut into 1 cm cubes, heated 60g of butter in a frying pan and fried the apples. The trick is to have the pan reasonably warm when you put them in, and then only to turn them after a couple of minutes of frying, so the apples go golden without burning. Don't stir them too much or apple purée will ensue. After turning a couple of times I added 80g of soft brown sugar and stirred one final time, then added these little half the squares of sweet toffee apple to Mary's cake mix. The rest I saved for decorating.

Instead of Mary's icing I made a quick toffee icing - 25g of butter and 100g of soft brown sugar heated gently in a pan until the are combined, then add 80ml of cream. Simmer gently whilst stiring for 2 minutes and then allow to cool until it is just starting to form a crust before spreading evenly over the cake and quickly levelling off with a palette knife - a good tip is to keep the palette knife in a jug full of boiling water, that way it forms a nice glaze on the icing without sticking too much to the blade. Finally I decorated with the remaining cubes of toffee apple.

Now it's time to taste it. Oddly there seems to be a hint of almonds...

Picture Credits:
Ceramic two-tone tableware by Rice DK
All images copyright Mark Fletcher

The Ancient British Art of the Pub Supper

Friday night is the traditional night for a post work trip to the Hatchet and Knuckleduster for a Campari and Soda (or your local variation on pub name and beverage). But as the friends we like to mull over the week with are all obsessed with food, there is also a long standing tradition of The Pub Supper. This consists of having something planned for supper and preferably cooking slowly in the oven so that you can gloat to your hungry compadres about the delicious feast which awaits. As the drink bites, so you find you can wax more lyrical about what juicy, succulent dish you have dreamt up.

Ingredients:
For the marinade:
1 medium onion
50g / 2 inch piece of ginger, peeled
1 medium green chillies
Small bunch / 80g coriander
6tsp garam masala or curry powder
4 tbsp greek yoghurt

To be marinaded
4 chicken thighs and 4 drumsticks
1 bulb fennel
3 carrots
6 banana shallots
1 green and 1 yellow pepper

Blend all the marinade ingredients together in a blender. Chop the vegetables into large chunks, mix together, preferably the night before to give it a good length of time to marinade. Cover with foil and pop the lot in the oven at 180 degrees centigrade for approximately 2 hours (this is a deep oven dish so takes quite a while to cook through to the centre - if you spread it out in a shallower and wider dish it could take less time).

If you are back from the pub in time, remove the foil for the last 30 minutes and give it a stir to brown things up. If not, eat it as it is, served with a spoon more of yoghurt.

Pull the Other One, Petula

I know Petula says that when we're low and life is making you lonely we can pop off down town, but sometimes it is all just too much effort. Usually rushed off my feet, I find I often fill the quiet time with friends,  family and entertaining.  Well not last night,  I tell you.  I've been under the weather all week, my partner is away so it was me, some magazines, a fire and a film for the evening.  I couldn't even muster to wander to the shops in slippers and dressing gown and so made my favourite stote cupboard supper - putanesca - and served it in this bowl by Rice to cheer me up and stop me feeling too ill.

For those not in the know,  Putanesca sauce is a tomato sauce (onions, garlic, tomatoes ... the usual base), sometimes with canned tuna or other fish, flavoured with finely diced salted anchovies, chopped capers, olives and a touch of chilli. Powerful stuff.

Frankenstein's soup: what to do with your pumpkin entrails.

Traditions always seem more important as the winter closes in. As the light diminishes so the rhythms of the year, marked by the round of festivities, seem to get louder. Towards the end of a hectic day working, I ended up excited like a child to quickly carve some pumpkins and put them on the front doorstep ready for the local trick or treaters. My Pinterest and Twitter have been full of classy, refined ways to decorate a pumpkin for the last week - all in neutral tones, fitting in with contemporary room schemes - but I wanted to hack away at some orange coloured flesh and make something fun and traditional - an approach I felt pleased with when one 8 year old announced that my efforts were "awesome". 

But I am a fraud - when it came to what to do with the pumpkin entrails, I went with something far away from tradition. The trouble is, I just find pumpkin bland, and so I decided to throw lots of flavour at this pile of pumpkin gore. The image of Thailand might conceivably be as far away from what we think of as a traditional "Halloween"  as The Seychelles are from Lapland, but they sure know how to throw flavour at food in Thailand. And so my traditional pumpkin has been abused like Frankenstein's monster, and turned into a creation which neither the Thai people nor our own would recognise as traditional. Now I am just waiting for a lightening bolt to see if it comes to life.

Ingredients:

1 large onion

25g butter

1 tbsp olive oil

2 cloves garlic

1 red chilli

3 sticks celery, sliced

1 large carrot, sliced

2 tsp red curry paste

The flesh of 1 medium pumpkin

Half pint chicken stock

Can of coconut milk.

Bunch of coriander, leaves finally chopped and stalks chopped separately

1 leek

1 tbsp fish sauce

Melt the butter over a medium heat with the olive oil. Add the onion and garlic and soften for 5 minutes. Add the chilli, then the carrots and celery and stir in. Add the red curry paste and keep stirring until all the vegetables are coated. Finally add the pumpkin flesh, chicken stock and corriander stalks. Simmer for 20 minutes, adding more water as necessary until the pumpkin flesh is soft. Then add the can of coconut milk and stir through.

While the soup is cooking down, I fry the leeks separately in olive oil over a medium heat, turning regularly. This is because I then whiz the rest of the soup with a hand blender before adding the leeks in whole. I think that food is partly about presentation and texture, and the green of the pieces of leek contrast a bit with the rest of the soup. Once I've mixed in the leeks I season and add fish sauce to taste - beware that the fish sauce is salty in itself so don't overdo the salt - it will depend on your stock how much you will need.

Firelight and Glass

Although complaining about the weather is a national pass-time, I love the seasonality of the United Kingdom. I've been on a driving weekend to Edinburgh the weekend just past, and the beauty of the landscape in Scotland at this time of year is breathtaking. With the nights drawing in and the winds and rains blowing, it is the perfect time of year for snuggling down by the fire with a dram of whisky.






I have been having a great time trying to capture that feeling in our seasonal photography. We've had a lot of new glass items in, and I've been working on the use of firelight with and without some experimental flash techniques to see what effects I can get - under exposing and then filling back in with direct flash or just letting the firelight dance through the glass on a long exposure. Because I do a lot of my photography work from home, it has been a great excuse to spend some time and money improving odd corners of the house and really getting it ready for winter so, during those long cold nights, there will be nowhere I'd rather be.

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These quirky geometric vases by House Doctor of Denmark look great with twigs from the garden in, or paint the twigs white and jazz up with decorations for Christmas















I love the combination of these fairy lights on the copper lidded box. Copper is such a warm and beautiful material, and it reflects the light magically here.

This House Doctor floor vase has been taken using a remote flash to illuminate the vase and twigs - an interesting effect and fun to try and set up.

Candle light - don't you just love it at this time of the year. The warm, natural glow looks great in this photo.

The Mother of Invention

With an audience looking over your shoulder you always do things differently. One of the things I enjoy most about writing this blog is that it encourages invention - encourages me to try new things so that I can write about them.

From an early age I have always loved cooking - a love passed down from my mother, but developed over the years by experimenting on friends, wanting to try new things, by travel, by growing vegetables and by many other aspects of my life. My Grandmother and mother both always kept food notes - their own treasured recipe books with ideas passed from friends to each other. In a day before 24 hour cooking channels and abundant celebrity chefs, ideas and recipes were cooked up, passed on, and often passed down a generation in worn and stained notebooks. Writing this blog sometimes reminds me of those ways of doing things: writing things down is a way of formalising ideas, making you think longer and harder about what you are doing and making something ready to pass on.

Tonight's supper might still be considered a work in progress. I'm not sure if it is cooking or an adult version of kids making lotions and potions in the garden. I've thrown coriander, sugar, lime juice, mustard, sugar, root ginger and toasted cumin seed in the blender, blended it together and then slowly added sunflower oil whilst the blender whirls to make a thick, gloopy dressing. We have the very final tomatoes and runner beans at the allotment at the moment, and I wanted something to go with a quick prawn curry. One of the best curries I ever had was a prawn Jeera, packed with cumin, and I guess my thoughts have been wandering that way, but I also like the crunchy tomato salad that is often served with poppadoms. With this in mind, I have blanched the beans and very finely chopped a shallot and some celery. I have diced the tomatoes and I am going to mix this with some of my invented dressing, tasting as I go, and hope that somewhere in there my child-like attempt at making lotions and potions will actually turn out to be rather magical and worth the effort put in to growing the tomatoes in the first place.

Picture Credits
Geronimo pasta bowl by Bliss Home
Acacia wood chopping board by House Doctor

Welcome to Autumn

The last of the tomatoes and beans are available from the allotment and garden still at the moment, but the skins are becoming a little tough on the tomatoes. My big sister invented this smoked haddock and tomato stew one year when we were all supposed to be dieting, but although it is an extremely healthy meal, it feels anything but a diet food with it's warm, rich flavours. I love this smoky stew as a welcome to Autumn – using up some of the harvest time produce, the smoky flavours hark forward to bonfires and fireworks. Pretty simple and one of those dishes you can chuck different things in, basically it is a fresh tomato soup in which you poach some smoked haddock chunks.

Basic Quantities for Ingredients (vary as available):

15 ripe tomatoes; 2 medium onions; 2 cloves garlic; 1 stick celery; 1tsp smoked sweet paprika; 1 cup stock; 0.5 tsp cayene pepper; handful of green beans; 300g smoked haddock; 1/2 a can of chickpeas to serve 4.

As with a lot of dishes, I start with finely chopped onions and garlic, which I sweat down in olive oil until they are soft. I then like to add a teaspoon of smoked paprika to bring out the smokiness and a teaspoon of ground cayenne for a bit of a kick. I then add finely chopped tomatoes (I rarely bother skinning them – it is a rustic dish and seems a waste of time if you are chopping them anyway). I add stock, wine or water depending on what I have in the fridge – I often add some very finely diced celery too as it is a good flavour enhancer. I cook it down for half an hour adding water as necessary to make it the consistency I fancy. A good long time cooking brings out the sugars in the tomatoes even if I do have to keep adding water Ten minutes before I want to serve, I add half a can of chickpeas and some green beans, then for the final 5 minutes, cubed smoked haddock to cook through.

If you've got potatoes going over, you could add those instead of the chickpeas, or add leek or carrot earlier in the cooking, but the basic idea of a smoky tomato and fish stew makes one of the best welcomes to Autumn, and I find myself regularly coming back to it at this time of year.

Picture features:

Ceramic two-tone Portugese tableware by Rice of Denmark

Backgroud: Copper lidded storage jar by House Doctor

Foreground: Acacia Wood chopping board by House Doctor

Jobs to Dwell on and Jobs to Speed Up

One of the most rewarding parts of my job is shooting photos for new stock. Choosing and buying stock is fun – we're now good friends with a lot of people from companies we deal with and getting together at trade shows to discuss new ideas and the coming season is great – but once the stock arrives I get my own creative kick by working out the best way to display items; the best story to tell with them. While the business was young and growing, most of this was done in the shop, but over the years much of that has been passed on to the hard working team I have there. My time is now often spent trying to give our online customers the kind of experience we give our shop customers. My home office is always full of stock samples and the kitchen is regularly turned into a photo studio for the day.

Although many suppliers provide stock photos, I love to do our own lifestyle shots. It gives us a chance to take items from different suppliers and put them together and gives us a stock of unique images and ideas for people. I come from a creative family and my Dad is a great photographer, so often helps out. My little sister is an artist - if I can get hold of her, Alice makes the best stylist. For me, running a small business is all about the variety, but this is definitely one job I regret having to rush when we are busy. Producing online content is my chance to communicate with our customers, provide the chat about products our real world customers get, show them ideas we have seen and loved. That's the best bit of running a real world shop, and it is also the best bit of running an online operation.

Below: I have always been a bit of a geek too – my latest fun thing to do is timelapse photography on my phone. Having had an interest in technology since I was young, I am amazed at what powerful little tools we carry around with us all the time now in the form of a mobile phone. High quality cameras, powerful computers connect to the endless knowledge available on the web. They can even speed up time, it seems.

And some of the resulting photographs for our Christmas section:

Coffee Ceremony

It may be that the act of drinking tea has a longer and more complex history of ceremony attached to it, but my morning cup of coffee is definitely the one I take time over most. Tea I have on the hoof like fuel, rushing around Fig1 HQ or the shop, up and down to the store room, a cup of tea is often carried with me, regularly left half finished in favour of a new cup or just plain forgotten by the computer. Tea is a simple affair for me - dunk a "brew bag", as my little sister calls it, in a cup of hot water; wring it out well (I like the tea strong); and a tiny splash of milk; and proceed to scald your mouth with it.

Coffee, on the other hand, I like to savour. The smell of coffee has always seemed magical. Since long before I drank the drink, the smell of it grinding in the restaurants we had when growing up would tantalize me and I maybe myself persevere with drinking it until the bitter taste seamed like nectar. I often drink it as espresso, and I use an old fashioned stove top espresso maker and always warm the cup. I enjoy the time it takes to make. But I vary the way I make it by mood: sometimes a splash of sugar as a real pic-me-up, sometimes neat, dark and black, sometimes with a little extra hot water, or sometimes with hot frothed milk.

However I drink it, I like to take time making it, choosing the right mug or cup, and then finding a spot to drink it away from the computer screen and the telephone - just 10 minutes of concentrating on self indulgence. And for extra indulgence, I have just helped myself to some of these two-tone ceramic mugs from the shop for Fig1 HQ. Well, they do seem to be made for our kitchen.

Portuguese ceramics by Rice

Food Obsession?

Not that I am obsessed with food, but this quick lunch seemed worth taking a picture of. It is one of those days when you go to the fridge looking for some inspiration and find it waiting for you - last night's left over potatoes, some garlic butter I made for a barbecue the other night but made too much, some mizuna leaves from the garden and a few marinated anchovies. I simply sautéed the potatoes up with some of the garlic butter, salted them at the last minute and popped it all in a plate. A blob of mayonnaise later and lunch was ready to go. 

Enjoying a nice lunch also seems to be about serving it on a nice plate and taking time away from the computer. It is so easy to work through next to the laptop, but I'm sure if you make your lunch break a treat, you get more work done in the afternoon. 

Lights, Camera, Action.

It is an exciting day at fig1 HQ today - we've just taken delivery of these new "film lights" from Nkuku. We choose them partially with the intention of having one for the kitchen here as the colour is a close match for the accent colour we choose for the kitchen. It has been over a year since I started a major renovation on the house here, and finding these finishing touches is really exciting. I'm loving having bits I've chosen for fig1.co.uk out on display and looking great. It is great to get the chance to choose bits of the collection I've curated for the shop to display at home. The combinations of materials - copper and mango wood - and the patterned surfaces of the House Doctor storage boxes is really beginning to work now in this corner of the kitchen.

When I started the renovation I really wanted everything to be planned with a place to live, so that things are easily accessible but also so that the objects I want to see around me are readily visible. Good storage and beautiful functional objects really make that achievable - what I definitely didn't want was a completely minimalist house where nothing at all was visible, but what is on display should look colourful and interesting. I'm really pleased with the way it has come together.

Making Pesto...

I love keeping pesto made in the fridge at this time of year. Our local green grocers does large bunches of basil at a really good price at this time of the year. I make a big bunch of it up into pesto and then use it on tomatoes (which I like to keep out of the fridge so they are really tasty), fresh pasta with sautéed courgettes or with just to dress up shop bought hummus and lunchtime sandwiches.

If I have time I get the pestle and mortar out to make it as bruising the basil leaves in that gives it more flavour, but if not I simply chuck the basil in the blender with a couple of cloves of garlic and chop it find, then add about the same weight of grated Parmesan and toasted pine nuts, together with a good slug of olive oil. Blend again but leave a bit of texture, then jar it up with a layer of olive oil on top to preserve it.

Photo credits

Mango wood chair and chopping board by House Doctor. The chairs we only ordered for fig1 HQ but we can order them in. Copper lidded jars by House Doctor as well - we love the copper and mango wood combination - pretty much my inspiration for the fig1 kitchen at the moment. The bowl the tomatoes are in is a favourite from Rice - I keep going on about the retro two tone colour combination of these jars, but I've hidden the inside in these picture a little!

Hot dressed salads

The quality of veg at this time of year always gets us inspired in the fig1.co.uk kitchen. I always keep a quantity of salad dressing made up in the fridge ready for going over whatever ingredients I can find. And peas and beans are some of my favourite ingredients - I've been dressing them hot with potatoes and some chopped tomato. You don't have to eat it hot even but if it is dressed while the beans or peas are still hot they really soak up the flavour.

The mint on the balcony seems to be in full flow today so I have chopped some mint and parsley up, shelled some peas (a fair few of which I ate whilst shelling them) and boiled a bag of Charlotte potatoes. Whilst they are on the go I've finely diced a couple of tomatoes and a shallot, added the herbs and some balsamic and olive oil dressing I already had made up. When the spuds are nearly cooked I'll add the peas in, then once they are finished I'll drain them add them hot into the bowl. I have to nip out later, but this will be ready to eat with some pan fried fish when I get back.

Sometimes I like to add some chopped olives, capers, piquant peppers or whatever else I have in jars in the fridge for extra flavour - a particularly good way of making this kind of thing nice and tasty in the winter when the tomatoes aren't so good and the peas are frozen. 

Hints and tips

• Give the potatoes a good shake in the colander when draining them - I hate it when you find the potatoes are still full of water as you tip them into the dressing! 
• Don't be tempted to rinse the spuds when you drain them - they will cool right down and won't absorb the flavour
• To make a really good dressing, I always properly crush some garlic and add a good spoon of Dijon mustard. Then either some balsamic or wine vinegar. Depending on what you choose you may also need some sugar, but taste it as you go. Then as you whisk, little by little, add about 4 times as much olive oil as vinegar. If you do this slowly and whisk enough you get a thick, goopy emulsion rather than a layer of oil and a layer of vinegar. It might need some practice but I prefer dressing like that and I usually use an electric whisk and wear an apron if I'm doing it - hence I then make lots and keep it in a jar in the fridge so I don't have to do it all the time!

Pictures

Today we were using the two tone Portuguese tableware by Rice to cook with - it's the joy of having your own shop - you can own a lot of different crockery. This new range from Rice is really colourful and quirky, it gives a little extra pleasure to eating. Plus Rice are bringing out some new designs soon!