How to Knit a Tentacle Scarf with Pockets

Yaaargh! It be the a curs'd KRAKEN!

I have a bit of a thing for tentacles.

That sounded far dirtier than it was supposed to. All I mean is, tentacles are cool. It’s a steampunk/pirate thing I suppose. Tentacles are cool in the same way that goggles or pirate boots are cool, they just are. So when, a couple of years ago as I was browsing Etsy for Christmas presents, and I stumbled across these tentacle scarves I knew I had to have one.

As it was Christmas though, the shop was also selling tentacle holiday stockings, to hang above the fire and fill with presents on Squidmas Eve! (warning – link NSFW and a bit gruesome in a cartoony way). Seeing the two together a thought struck me; better than an ordinary tentacle scarf would be a long scarf with two tentacle stockings at either end, that I could use as tentacled gloves/arm warmers or just as pockets to keep my oyster card etc in.

So I messaged the seller to make enquiries. She was happy to make the scarf for me just as I’d described it, but it would have to wait until the new year as she was backed up with Christmas orders at the time. She also quoted me a price, $68 for a normal scarf, $84 for one with the extra pockets; that’s £42 and £51 by today’s conversion rate. That might seem like a lot or a little depending on your situation. At the time I thought it was probably quite reasonable; custom knitting is labour and time intensive and the scarves looked amazing, but I still couldn’t justify spending £50 on a scarf.

Since I knew I’d have to wait until the new year anyway I decided to think about it and maybe buy it with some Christmas money. Then the new year came, I was distracted by other shiny things, and I promptly forgot.

Eighteen months or so later I remembered the scarf, the problem I was now working as an intern and so I definitely couldn’t afford £50; however I was also a slightly better knitter. This will sound horribly cliched, but I like a creative challenge. I like to look at something, try to mentally take it apart and figure out how I could create it myself; so that is exactly what I did.

Creeplings’ scarves are crotcheted, which I suspect is a more appropriate technique to use for the suckers. I do not know how to crotchet yet, nor do I own any properly sized crotchet hooks, but I do know how to knit, so this is a knitted version instead. I’m hoping that Creeplings won’t mind me posting the pattern I came up with here. If you’re not knitter yourself though, you’d rather avoid the faff, or if you’d just prefer a scarf made to a more professional looking pattern I urge you to go and buy one from her store. She seems like a lovely person, she makes kick arse awesome scarves, and now they’re only $27 i.e. £16, which is a pittance to pay for a custom hand crocheted scarf. A pittance.

For those of you who would like to have a go yourselves though the pattern I came up will be posted below soon. I had it up earlier, but as I’ve never written a knitting pattern before a friend suggested I take it down while she test knits it for me.

Thanks and much be-tentacled love!

Tentacles are cool. I wear tentacles now. ❤

St John Roasted Bone Marrow on Toast with Parsley Salad

If you’ve never eaten roasted marrow bones before I urge you to give them a try. Soft, sweet, salty, melty, meaty deliciousness, it will be one of the best things you’ll ever eat on toast. Of course the reason they taste so comfortingly luscious is because what you’re eating is mostly fat with just a bit of protein, meaning this may not be the best meal if you’re trying to lose weight. On the other hand, I’d rather do a bit more exercise or have a slightly fuller figure than miss out on this kind of simple edible joy. And anyway what are you trying to lose weight for, you look beautiful just the way you are.

Marrow bones are super simple to cook, just stick ’em in the oven for 20 minutes then serve, and they’re usually fairly cheap too, some butchers may even throw them in for free. Most recipes seem to recommend 2-3 bones per person as a lunch or starter, but really it depends on the person and the bones. The one in the picture seemed to supply and never-ending amount of marrow and I had to fetch extra toast to spread it on, making it a filling lunch in itself.

I followed this recipe from Fergus Henderson’s St John restaurant, somewhere I really need to eat and a book I really need to buy in the near future. Damn limited funds. I’ll give you the measurements I used though as I decreased the amounts to feed one rather than four.

St John’s roasted bone marrow on toast with parsley salad
serves 1 for lunch

• 1-2 marrow bone sections (or three, if they’re small/you’re really hungry)
• hand full of flat leaf parsley
• 1 shallot
• 1 tsp capers, rinsed
• 1/4 lemon
• 1tbsp extra virgin olive oil or rapeseed oil
• A few slices of sourdough (or other bread if you prefer, but I’ve come to the decision that all bread should be sourdough – it’s just better than the others)
• Course sea salt.

Stand the marrow bone sections on their widest end in an oven proof dish, then roast in an oven at 190C/fan 170C/gas mark 5 for 20 minutes.

Chop the parsley and finely slice the shallot. The original recipe didn’t say to chop the capers, but mine were slightly larger so I chopped them up a bit too. Whisk together the juice from the lemon quarter and the oil, then toss together with the parsley, shallot and capers.

Toast the sourdough slices. When the bones are ready* place them on a plate and sprinkle the top with a pinch of sea salt.

To eat, just scoop the marrow out with a spoon or knife, spread across the toast and top with the parsley salad. Beam with meaty contentment.

* The bones will release a decent amount of fat while they’re cooking. This is beef dripping, don’t throw it away! Strain it into a cup, leave it to cool and keep it in the fridge. Spread it on toast with a sprinkling of salt, use it to shallow fry potatoes or Google other uses. Every time you throw away good beef dripping a Northerner cries.

Paul A Young Chocolaterie, Wardour Street, Soho

I’m sure this has been said before, but it deserves saying again; Paul A Young is as close as you will ever get to the real life Willy Wonka. His chocolate may not be mixed by waterfall, or crafted by tiny orange forest folk, but there’s definitely a special kind of genius at work.

I was lucky enough to receive an invitation to the greatly anticipated opening of Paul A Young’s flagship store in Soho. With the original store in Islington and the second store in the City, this marks the third and potentially final London store, although undoubtedly it will not be the last store worldwide. Paul is determined to avoid the pitfalls of rapid expansion, where innovation can be washed out to be replaced by a bland, watered down version of the original as everything is spread too thin. Each of the stores produces fresh, hand made chocolates on site, using painstaking traditional techniques and fresh, natural ingredients, and Paul is there to ensure that the very first chocolate produced in Soho uses the exact same techniques and tastes just as spectacular as the very first chocolate to be sold at Camden Passage five years ago.

Impressively this passion and commitment to craftsmanship extends beyond the products and into the stores themselves. At the new Soho store everything, from the central display table down to the refrigeration units has been reclaimed, recycled, up-cycled, locally sourced or handmade. This includes a wonderfully unique glass chandelier at the centre of the store, and a beautiful reclaimed wooden alter that now serves as the main counter. I can’t think of a better use.

Downstairs we were given a tour of the fantastic kitchen space the new store provides, which stretches out underneath the shop above as well as the two adjacent stores. Unused when they found it, the basement once housed an old Soho nightclub and given Paul’s description of crumbling arches, nicotine soaked walls and seriously dodgy electrics, it’s a wonder how the team managed, in only six weeks, to transform it into the gleaming white kitchen there now.

As Paul spoke you could see and hear his excitement at the opportunities this space would provide. In recent years Soho has seen a resurgence as a food hot spot, with top restaurants, cafés, and boutique delicatessens springing up, but this is the first artisan chocolaterie in the area. It is this younger, more adventurous food scene that Paul and his team are hoping to tap into with the new flagship store; putting the huge kitchen space to use on innovation, creating and launching new seasonal product lines with a shorter time span.

It is this creativity, innovation and fearless use of unusual flavours that really makes Paul A Young chocolates stand out. We were given a chance to try the new summer range, that includes such unexpected flavours as tomato, basil and olive oil, orange and tarragon, St Germain liqueur with elderflower, and wild strawberry, balsamic and black pepper, alongside his known classics like the Marmite truffle. Through some quirk or foolishness on my part I’d previously only tried Paul’s chocolate once at an Easter Egg tasting, where his sea salted caramel egg outstripped everything else we tasted. So when faced with a chance to try the entire current range, well, I went a bit mad. Despite an initial show of reserve I ended up losing all restraint trying one of near to all the chocolates there, that’s somewhere in the region of 20 chocolates or more. That my friends is too much chocolate, and trust me there can be such a thing.

Amidst my gluttonous binge though, and before the eventual sugar shakes set in, there were several flavours that really shone. From the summer range the sea salted black sesame tahini just worked perfectly, as did the passion fruit curd and coffee, the fruitiness of which was so well balanced I was amazed I’d never seen the two paired before. A returning chocolate but new to me, the goats cheese, rosemary and lemon was divine but my absolute favourite was the Kernel Brewery stout and dark muscovado. Honestly, it may make me a failure as a writer, but words simply could not express how incredible that chocolate was; a deeply contented moan might just about capture it.

In the hands of any other chocolatier ‘whacky’ flavour combinations like those above might end up tasting gimmicky or odd, but not here. This is the reason Paul is held in such high regard as a craftsman as well as an innovator, for every chocolate I tried the individual flavours were distinct and vibrant, yet married seamlessly, each giving way to another as you ate.

On top of the single chocolate, the store also produces rotating collections of artisan chocolate bars, flavoured bars, and brownies. We were given a brownie to try at home, all I can say is this is what every brownie wishes it could taste like but never knew how; deep, dark, rich and incredibly squidgy.

www.paulayoung.co.uk

Paul A Young
143 Wardour Street
Soho
London W1F 8WA
+44 (0)20 7437 0011

Opening Times:
Monday – Saturday: 10am – 8pm
Sunday: 12pm – 7pm

There’s no online ordering, however if you can’t make it into the store mail order is available the old fashioned way by directly calling the store. This too though does depend on the weather (if it’s too hot the chocolates would melt in the post!)

Thank you to the lovely Kate Johns from Nudge PR and to Paul A Young for inviting me to the opening.

Parsley, Walnut, Miso Vegan Pesto

Super quick post as I utterly fail to battle my way through the backlog and get a lengthier post up (sorry, sorry, sorry).

Vegan pesto made using miso paste to replace the parmesan cheese, incredible! I was utterly stuck trying to think of something for dinner tonight that a) the fussy boyfriend would eat b) didn’t require much work and c) didn’t require a trip to the shops.

Pasta was suggested but I wasn’t really in the mood for a tomato based sauce and didn’t think I had much of anything else in. A rummage in the fridge drawers however pulled up some rather wilted parsley and some slightly sprightlier basil. So, pesto.

Except I knew I had no cheese. So, vegan pesto?

I wasn’t sure what vegan pesto would use instead of cheese. My guess was nothing, but a quick Google turned up this recipe that suggested using miso paste as a replacement. It seemed odd, but the logic made sense; one salty umami hit replaced by another.

I also knew I had a jar of miso in the fridge, so vegan miso-pesto it was. As I didn’t have pine nuts in the house I replaced them with toasted walnuts instead, inspired by the unbelieveably good mushroom udon with walnut miso that I’d recently eaten at Koya (seriously. Go there. Eat that. You won’t be sorry).

My scales are broken at the moment so I just measured everything by eye and tasted as I mixed. There are more accurate measurements on the inspirational post behind this, but they are in American cups and so utterly mysterious to me (another reason for me not measuring anything).

Parsley walnut miso pesto

Makes…an amount (I haven’t decanted it into a jar yet, enough for two plus leftovers though)

• Bunch of flat leaf parsley (about the size of a supermarket packet)
• Half as much basil as parsley
• A generous handful of walnuts
• 1 heaped tbsp of miso paste (I used Clearspring unpasteurised barley miso)
• Extra virgin olive oil/rapeseed oil
• 1/4 lemon
• Two cloves of garlic (if they’re big you may only need one)

Put the basil and the parsley into a food processor (I threw them in stalks and all) together with the miso paste.

Heat a dry frying pan and lightly toast the walnuts, then add them to the food processor. Peel the cloves of garlic (easiest way, smash them with the broad side of a knife, then pull the skin off) and add to the walnuts and herbs. Blitz everything together.

Once everything’s ground down, with the food processor still running, slowly pour the oil in through the feed tube. Again, I didn’t measure how much I used so just carefully free pour and stop every so often to check the consistency; you’re aiming for a loose paste.

When you’re happy with the consistency squeeze in the juice from the lemon and give it one last mix. Taste, and if you think it needs more of any of the above ingredients i.e. more lemon, more garlic, more miso, add them and blitz again.

Like most pestos I imagine this will keep in a sterilised jar in the fridge for about a month, but as I’ve only just made it I can’t say for sure.

Duck Egg and Asparagus Carbonara

For some reason I’d always imagined spaghetti carbonara to be one of those impossible to get right dishes, best left for the experts and ordered when eating out. So when I read this post from Eat Like a Girl about a year ago I was shocked to learn how quick and simple it actually is. No cream, no fuss, just a little oil, egg yokes, parmesan, freshly ground black pepper and hot pasta. Needless to say I’ve eaten a lot of carbonara since then.

Of course traditionally carbonara would also include cubes of pancetta or bacon lardons, however as I try to avoid eating meat too much in the week I often don’t have any in the house and so will turn to a seasonal “vegetarian” version like this instead. (The version in the picture actually does have bacon in it because it’s an old picture from a few weeks ago rather than the bacon-less version I made tonight. Oops.)

I say “vegetarian” because for strict vegetarians this recipe wouldn’t quite cut it; parmesan cheese is made with animal rennet, as are it’s cheaper substitutes Grana Padano and pecorino. There are similar Italian style hard cheeses that are vegetarian that can be swapped in, although they’re not as readily available, and those I’ve tried have never been quite as nice as the real thing.

The duck egg is a new addition. I’ve made carbonara previously both with just the yokes and with a whole chicken egg. The version with yokes is, unsurprisingly, creamier and would always be my preference were it not for the tiny pots of egg white that end up accumulating in the freezer never to be used. Of course there are loads of recipes the whites could be used for, primarily baking meringues or macarons, or simply an egg-white omelette if that’s your sort of thing, but it isn’t mine and invariably they end up going to waste.

To avoid this I usually opt for the less creamy whole egg version on a week night, but no more. Enter the duck egg; with it’s larger, richer yoke the whole egg seems to do just as well as a pair of chicken egg yokes and means I get deliciously creamy carbonara without any wasted whites. Hooray!

Duck Egg and Asparagus Carbonara
Serves 2

• 150g-200g spaghetti (however much you’d normally cook for two people)
• 1 duck egg
• A bunch of asparagus (12 or so spears)
• 30g freshly grated parmesan
• A clove of garlic
• Small knob of butter
• A glug of olive oil (1 tbsp-ish)
• Salt & pepper

Cook the spaghetti in a large pan of boiling salted water for about a minute less than the packet instructions (about 9 minutes probably).

Snap the woody ends of the asparagus spears and cut them into inch long lengths. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and toss in the asparagus. Smash the garlic clove with the broad side of a knife, take the papery skin off and add to the pan. Fry the asparagus for about 4 minutes over a medium-high heat, you want to get some colour on all sides but let it keep a bit of crunch.

While the asparagus and pasta are cooking, break the duck egg into a mug or bowl and beat together with the grated parmesan and some freshly ground black pepper.

When the asparagus is ready, take the garlic clove out as you only wanted it to flavour the oil. Give the pan 30 seconds or so to cool down, then drop in the knob of butter and allow to melt in the residual heat.

Drain the cooked pasta reserving some of the cooking water and add to the asparagus; I just use tongs to pull the pasta straight out of the water and into the frying pan.

Use a spoonful or two of the reserved water to thin the mixed egg and parmesan, pour over the pasta and toss until everything is coated. The heat from the water and the pasta will thicken the egg to form a glossy, creamy sauce.

The butter and the wet pasta should have cooled the frying pan down enough to avoid the egg in the sauce scrambling instead of thickening, but if you find that happens the simple solution is to mix the egg and the parmesan in a large enough bowl and add the buttery pasta and asparagus to that instead. I would do that, but I’m lazy and would rather avoid the extra washing up if I can. As long as the frying pan has cooled down though it shouldn’t be a problem.

Kitchen Shortcuts and WORLDFOODS Fusion Taste Team Challenge One – Pad Thai

I am, it must be admitted, a bit of a food snob; I suspect most food bloggers, food geeks, and self proclaimed foodies are. There is nothing wrong with this attitude per se, at it’s most reasonable food snobbery is simply a manifestation of someone caring about their food, what goes into it, who made it, where it came from etc. A mindset that should surely be encouraged if it stops people mindlessly shovelling unknown, tasteless, highly processed, battery farmed, mystery meat meals into their bodies. With diet related illnesses now costing the NHS £13 billion every year we need to start being a little more discerning about the food we eat.

That, I hope you’ll agree, seems fairly reasonable, but there are times when food snobbery can be taken too far. There is a part of my brain that’s extremely reticent to say this but, not all pre-prepared food is bad. I may dream The Good Life middle class dream, of cooking from scratch, everyday, using food I’ve grown or reared myself; but for most people, myself including, that simply isn’t feasible. Batch cooking meals for the freezer, or carefully planning meals around a central base prepared at the weekend can of course help, but sometimes corners still have to be cut. I’m far from the only one who thinks so, in recent years St Delia herself has taught us How to Cheat at Cooking, while Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals and Nigella’s Kitchen both use shortcuts freely to get the meals out fast. Of course all have received some criticism, and not all of the shortcuts they make seem that justified (mince in a can Delia, really?) but they do still have a point.

So on occasion I will use jars of pesto, buy filled pasta and a ready made sauce, or raid the freezer for breaded fish, oven chips and peas. Yet despite all of this I remain wary of endorsing pre-prepared products in this space. It was therefore with some reticence that I accepted an invitation to join WORLDFOODS Fusion Taste Team. WORLDFOODS produce a range of pan-Asian pastes, sauces and marinades, which they state are “100% Natural, use fresh ingredients, food allergens free, gluten free, trans fat free, no genetically modified ingredients” and all products are suitable for vegetarians, vegans & coeliacs. This is all fantastic and certainly commendable, but it’s still not enough to ease my food snobbery. The real test for me can only come with how these products taste.

So I signed up, and shortly thereafter received a beautiful hamper in the post with a range of different bottles and jars, as well as some other lovely bits and bobs to aid in trying them out. WORLDFOODS have since been setting us challenges on a weekly basis to try out each of the products in turn. So far we’ve been through four challenges; Pad Thai, Ayam Percik, Tom Yum and Nasi Goreng. As ever I’ve been slightly slow at getting them written up but I’m far from the only one lagging behind and this week has subsequently been given as a “catch-up” week. I think the WORLDFOODS team may have realised that asking bloggers to work to a weekly schedule is a little like trying to herd cats.

Anyway, with that not so mini-rant out of the way I’ll post up the results of the first challenge:

WORLDFOODS Fusion Taste Team Challenge One – Pad Thai

This challenge used the WORLDFOODS Thai ‘Pad Thai’ Noodle Sauce. You can read the official challenge recipe here, which used prawns, with a vegetarian alternative suggestion of tofu, and the optional addition of a shredded omelette. Knowing that the boyfriend doesn’t eat prawns (shame – I love prawns) and not sure he’d eat tofu either I opted to use chicken thighs instead which I chopped into bite-sized chunks. Unable to imagine Pad Thai that didn’t feature egg I also added the shredded omelette. Finally, after forgetting to buy bean sprouts, I threw in some sliced red and green pepper to boost the veg content and make it a bit more colourful. As suggested I garnished with (very) roughly chopped roasted peanuts and squeezed over a wedge of lime.

And do you know what, despite my scepticism and the whole rant at the top of this post, this was actually really nice. Having never been to Asia I can’t comment on it’s authenticity, and I’ll admit it wasn’t as nice as the Pad Thai I used to get from the Tampopo noodle bar back in Manchester, but it did make a quick and simple tasty dinner.

I’ll get the other challenges posted up in the next few weeks as I battle through the May back-log, but you can also find more up to date posts from other members of the team on the WORLDFOODS Fusion of Flavours Facebook Page or by following @fusiontasteteam over on Twitter. In the meantime I’ll leave you with this brilliant video on how to make vegan Pad Thai, heavy metal style.

Thank you to WORLDFOODS for sending me a bottle of their sauce to try out for this blog post.

Sweet Potato, Fennel and Feta Frittata

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming…

Well, May happened. May happened and I did almost no blogging, and the one post I did write doesn’t even really belong here. Terrible, I do apologise.

There have been a few exciting developments though. To celebrate my blog’s first birthday (erm, which was in early April, there’s a post about the past year somewhere in the back log, honest) I bought myself a domain! Okay so not that exciting for people who aren’t me, but for people who are me it’s a shiny new toy to play with…and procrastinate from blogging with. At the moment it’s just set up to redirect here while I figure out what I want to do with it and how I can do whatever it is that I decide I want to do with it. In the meantime I’ll try not to let it distract me from actually writing something and hopefully posting will once again become more regular.

For now, here’s a quick post about the frittata I took into work today. This was my contribution to a colleague’s fundraising drive for the Japanese disaster relief. She’d asked a different person each day, over two weeks, to bring in a dish to share and asked everyone who ate to donate a small sum in return. Of course I forgot that I’d signed up to bring something in today, until about 8:30pm last night. Cue me scouring the cupboards and making a mad dash to the shops.

I love frittatas and tortillas. I like to think of them as pastry-less quiches, which is something else I love. They all fall under that category of brilliantly simple, anything goes dishes that can change to reflect the seasons, your mood, or whatever you have lurking in the back of the fridge. My favourite kind of cooking.

This one pretty much came about for the last of the above reasons; I had sweet potatoes and I had fennel. I suspected the two would work together, and Google bolstered my suspicions. Both caramelised slightly in the pan, which gave the frittata a delicious sweetness. Of course a frittata is almost always improved, as many things are, by the addition of cheese. I’d originally planned to add ricotta, inspired by a recent post from Eat Like a Girl, but the local shops didn’t have any so some creamy feta was a great alternative.

Sweet Potato, Fennel and Feta Frittata

Serves 4-6 with some salad on the side

• 2 Sweet potatoes
• 1/2 large fennel bulb (or 1 small blub – mine just happened to be huge!)
• 100g feta (1/2 a standard sized block)
• 6 eggs
• milk (at a guess 100ml, I just sloshed some in, how much is a “slosh”?)
• 1 tbsp oil
• salt & pepper

Peel the sweet potatoes and thinly slice into rounds about 5mm thickness. Halve the fennel if using a whole bulb, cut the core out and thinly slice this too. If you’re lucky enough to have some fronds on your fennel save these.

Preheat the grill to high. In a decent sized frying pan, ideally with a lid, heat the oil then add the potatoes. Move the potatoes around to coat them in oil, then cover with the lid. If you don’t have a lid you could use a plate, the seal doesn’t need to be perfect. Leave to cook on a gentle heat for about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes give the potatoes a bit of a stir and add the fennel, then cover and cook for another 5 minutes.

Beat the eggs together with the milk and season with a little salt and pepper. When the potatoes and fennel are ready pour over the eggs mix and give it all a gentle stir. Keep moving everything in the pan around a bit until the egg is almost set then crumble over the feta, pushing it down slightly into the nearly set egg. If you have any fennel fronds tear them up and scatter them over the top too.

Pop the pan under the hot grill for a few minutes until golden on top.

This is probably nicest warm, but it also makes a really tasty lunch cold the next day.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important message…

Avoid discussing politics or religion, so goes the standard advice for dinner party etiquette. These are the topics which, particularly after a glass of wine (or five) can spark blazing heated rows and divide a otherwise amicable group. Keep conversation light, pleasant, peaceful, talk about mutual interests, hobbies, or if needs be the weather. Boring? Perhaps, but at least no-one’s likely to swear a blood feud and storm out of the room over a comment on how clement it’s been for this time of year.

When you wish upon a blog…

When you wish upon a blog
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
May come to you…

Yes, it seems that sometimes, in life as in Disney, wishes really do come true. There is a magical Fairy Hobmother currently watching over the blogosphere, granting wishes and leaving trails of appliance-based happiness wherever she lands.

Squash Seed, Parsley, Chilli and Goat’s Cheese Pesto

This was something I first tried a few months ago, it’s slightly less seasonal now but still just as frugal and you can always replace the squash seeds with pumpkin seeds from a packet.

Anyway, I’d bought a squash with the usual plans to roast and mix with pasta/risotto/whiz into soup, when a though occurred to me; could you eat squash seeds the same way you could eat pumpkin seeds? I couldn’t see why not, they’re basically just variants on the same fruit. So I Googled it, and according to the internet you can.