Fabulous Chelsea

Mended Spiderwebs

The Innocent newsletter has provided another gem - this time the art work of Nina Katchdourian. I simply love her mended spiderwebs!

Crucible

Sat in Euston train station waiting for my train back to reality, already I have been jostled on the tube but my mind is dwelling on the events of the past few days. It all began on Saturday as I, anxiously, took the train from Birmingham to Cambridge for the first Crucible (http://www.nesta.org.uk/crucible/) lab. There I met 30 young scientists from a huge variety of disciplines. Our initial afternoon, in the first warm sunshine of the year, was packed with 3min slots where each of us gave a snapshot of our lives and research. At dinner I got to know Jim as we discussed films and books, amazed to discover new ones from our overlapping likes. A late night in the pub was followed by an early morning start for discussions on interdisciplinarity and the media. Again a spectacular dinner, with Viv doing a pseudo-ballet on the government offices involved with science and scientists. Another late night followed by an even earlier morning as we travelled down to London to meet at Portcullis House with policy makers, influencers and MPs. Another jam packed day. At the close of our meeting we walked down to the Institute of Chartered Engineers where we were having dinner. As we arrived to a room already thronged with people I was taken aback. After our cocoon over the past three days we emerged into a sea of people. After speeches we set about talking to many people around the room. Becky and I sought out the black suited gentlemen, who were so attired as they had just come from work. The time flew by and it seemed dinner was upon us too soon for my head but just on time for my stomach. At dinner Viv showed her flair for getting to know us in just three days and I think we were all sorry to hear that our fairy godmother won’t be with us in Edinburgh or Cardiff. Relaxing with Ally, Chrissy and Jamie we all said how amazing an experience it had been and that we couldn’t wait for Edinburgh, though sometime to digest the events of the weekend are definitely necessary. To the Royal mile in a couple if month’s time!

(The wonderful beetles are from New Hall)

Spectacular cycling

I've just finished watching 'the man who cycled the world' on the iPlayer - an amazing documantary about Mark Beaumont who cycled from Paris around the world and back to Paris, 18,000 miles in just 195 days!!! Pretty spectacular stuff, check it out at his website.

Congratulations to Vicki and Seb

This morning outside my window the world had turned white. Without a thought I donned my out door gear and walking boots, grabbed my camera and headed out. It was beautiful and I couldn't resist nipping down to my favorite spot to see what the cobwebs were looking like. Lots of snow and ice were clinging to them and I thought this picture was particularly nice. I'm using it to say congratulations to Vicki and Seb who got married yesterday!! Both bride and groom were looking lovely and thankfully it only started snowing in the night. Lets hope it hasn't caused extra trouble for Terminal 5.

I just found this picture on my draft list on the blog - it was a tasty recipe - cream and peaches but I can't remember how I made it - nice pic though!

Cycling video

At the beginning of February I packed up my bike, Whistler, and headed for London and then on to a plane head for Vietnam. There, luckily Whistler arrived in one piece and I met up with a great crowd of folk for a cycling holiday that would take us from Saigon (Ho Chi Min City) through the Mekong delta and then up to Cambodia and from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, finishing with the spectacular temples that include Angkor Wat. This video is made up of sereval clips I took whilst cycling. The first three are from Vietnam and then we head into Cambodia, first along some busy roads out of the capital and then along more rural roads and finally through the South and North gates of Angkor Thom. The sound is just what I picked up a dn rather than put a tune over it I decided that just the vague clips of the bike and the strains of music as we came past a festival were more atmospheric.

Bread baking day #7 Lefse

Petra is hosting bread baking day this month and the theme is flatbreads. I instantly thought of these fantastic Norwegian Lefse which we always have when we go and visit Dougal in Stavanger. I had a little root about and found that to make them all you need to do is to make mashed potatoes and add enough self raising flour to make a dough! What could be easier and it was incredibly simple! Everyone in the lab is now enjoying them with a little homemade bramble and apple jam and cream, though I also really like them with a little sugar and cinnamon.

Lefse

6 medium sized potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
100ml double cream
25g butter
self rasing flour

Boil the potatoes until soft, drain and then mash with the cream and butter until very smooth. Then add enough self rasing flour to make a smooth, non-sticky dough. Divide the dough into 32 portions and roll out very thinly. in a dry frying pan or on a griddle toast each lefse until lightly freckled on each side. If you have a bigger frying pan or griddle you may be able to make bigger ones just divide the dough into fewer portions. I made mine the night before eating them and I think they would freeze well too.

You can eat them with pretty much anything, including the dreaded Lutefisk!

Sunrise over Angkor Wat

A little bit shaky without a tripod, this was a really wonderful way to spend our last morning, even though it involved being up at 4.45am!!

Vietnam and Cambodia prelim

Here's a preliminary map of where we went! I am still fiddling with Google Earth to get a map and then it'll be a little bit more interactive!

Muffins galore!

Fig and cardamom, pear and almond and pumpkin seed butter muffins!

For the Fig and Cardamom and the pumpkin seed butter muffins make a base with 225g unsalted butter and 225g caster sugar, 225g self raising flour and 4 eggs. Then mix in either 150g chopped ready to eat dried figs with 3 crushed cardamom seeds (the big green ones but without the green papery bit) or 115g pumpkin seed butter. Put in little cases. Bake at 200°C for 20min.

For the pear and almond muffins Soak 225g chopped dried pears in 4tbsp whisky for 1h. Blitz together 450g self raising flour, 115g usalted butter, 115g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 75ml plain yoghurt, 50g chopped almonds and the pears and their juice. Put in little cases. Bake at 175°C for 20min.

Some jolly sheep from a walk at Christmas - their bells made lovely tinkling noises!

A little New Year's Eve video - stills were taken every 30s from about 6 until about 10 in the evening. The music is Johann Strauss's Champagne Polka (appropriate I thought!).

Nyttarsmeny

Our fabulous New Years eve meal at Sorensons on the harbour front in Stavanger:

Kamchatka carb with avacado spring roll, wasabi cream and ginger foam

Trout, pumpkin soup, fennel and pumpkin seed oil

Deer filet and sausage, mashed potato, mixed vegetables and cranberry jus

Choclate cake with orange salad and panettone ice cream!

Christmas Cakes

For Sally's birthday party I made a few little cakes - fruity ones and muffins!

Mini Christmas Cakes a la BBC Good Food
225g butter
2 tbsp brandy
pinch of saffron
225g golden catser sugar
4 eggs
225g plain flour
50g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
300g raisins
300g sultanas
100g glace cherries, halved
85g mixed peel
50g almonds, roughly chopped
50g hazelnuts, roughly chopped
50g pecans

Heat the oven to 160°C. Heat the brandy in a small pan and add the saffron and leave to infuse for a few minutes. Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, ground almonds, baking powder and a pinch of salt in a bowl, beat together until smooth. Mix in the fruit, nuts and brandy-saffron. Spoon into 24 muffin cases and bake for 50min, or until a skewer comes out clean.

To ice I used ready rolled marzipan and regal icing because I'm lazy but you could easily make your own. I dusted the cakes with edible snowflake, silver or gold from Squires Kitchen.

Cranberry and orange muffins
200g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarb
1/2 tsp baking poweder
125g caster sugar
100ml low fat plain yoghurt
grated rind of an orange
100ml freshly squeezed orange juice
1 egg
150g fresh cranberries

Heat the oven to 200°C. Put the cranberries in a baking dish and sprinkle with 50g sugar. Bake in the oven for about 10min until they have burst and soaked up the sugar, but are still whole and not mush. In a bowl sift the flour, bicarb, baking powder and remaining sugar. In a jug mix together the yoghurt, egg, orange juice and rind. Then combine the liquids and flour mixture and stir in the cranberries. Just incorporate everything and don't over mix to get fluffy muffins. Then distribute between 12 muffin cases and bake for about 20min. The cranberries give the muffins quite a tart taste so if you like them a bit sweeter just adda little more sugar.

Sunrise over Chancellors Court

A couple of weeks ago I was cycling to work, I needed to be there early and everything was very frosty. As I came over the bridge I couldn't help but stop and take a few photos of the spiders webs encased in frost, I never did get to work that early in the end.

Hurrah!

Ok so this is very geeky but these are my cells that I have got to express green fluorescent protein! (The red is actin - the cytoskeleton- and the blue are the nuclei). The top one is of three oral keratinocytes, gum cells and the bottom one is a neuroblastoma cell, a brain cell!

Dawn

Its been like this every day this week - very beautiful!

We're Jammin'

and jellying.....
I have been busy preserving - I managed to get some medlars and quinces from the farmers market and made some jellies, and also used up the end of the free damsons and mini quinces making jam and quince cheese. The medlars are quite interesting - I'd never used them before but they were quite popular several hundred years ago! The interesting thing is that you have to let them 'blet' of rot before you can use them - so I left mine under several rather ripe bananas for a week or so to get them all soft and brown. Then I stewed them for about an hour until they were pulpy and strained the juice. Finally for evey 600ml I added 450g sugar and boiled up the jelly until it set on a plate. This didn't take long as they're packed full of pectin! The other jellies were just the same and the jam, with help from Fran, Katie and Kira soon coated nearly every surafce of my very sticky kitchen after an evening of stirring and testing! The quince cheese is curing in the airing cupboard so more on that later.




These are medlars before bletting