Apple Cheeeeeese

Posted on September 10, 2013 by lucy

The autumnal manic preserving has continued apace and i thought i’d share with you my latest exploits. I was given a load of apples via work, from a long neglected apple tree outside the office hence producing very small fruit. The thought of peeling and chopping them all individually didn’t fill me with domestic joy so i decided to try out a recipe for ‘apple cheese’. The concept of fruit cheese in fact originated from wartime austerity whereby the pulp leftover from fruit jellies was re-used, although with a bit of compromise on flavour.

To me it’s a bit of a misnomer. Why call something that you eat with cheese, cheese? That reminds me – when we lived in Hailes Street, Lyla’s first attempt at naming butter was “butter-cheese!’. Maybe she was onto something.

For apple cheese there is nothing more to preparing the fruit than simply chopping into quarters and stewing gently with water. Ideal for those small knobbly little buggers.

Next, pass the pulp through a sieve. It will need a bit of encouragement to come through… Place the concentrated puree into a saucepan and add 3/4 of it’s volume in sugar. (100ml = 75g sugar). Boil for around an hour until it darkens and takes on a glossy texture. At this stage i tested it for setting point using the traditional method of placing a wee blob onto a plate and putting in the fridge. If set in a few minutes, you’re laughing. Literally, as there is nothing worse than unset preserves, because there is no going back once you’ve potted them.

Oil some ramekins so your little mounds of joy will slide out without too much objection.Seal with waxed paper and string or elastic, and leave to set for a few days. Then serve the little lovelies with a some medium flavoured cheese. Anything too strong and the delicate apple-y-ness gets lost.

The recipe came from this 1970’s preserving book. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s ideal for the novice but with a bit of know-how the recipes are truly authentic, and they work (which is more than can be said for internet preserving recipes, many of which are complete rubbish.)

More preserves coming up next week!

I love stripping

Posted on September 4, 2013 by lucy

It’s been a long number of years since i undertook a proper stripping and sanding project. And having just finished this cabinet, now i remember why.

As i started work on this latest piece earlier in the summer, i was remembering the first desk i stripped and sanded in Edinburgh. We found it on Dalkieth Road the year we got married; a beautiful traditional school desk in need of some love. I convinced Malkie to help me (those were during his days of innocence), and together we did the whole thing by hand down in the shared garden of our flat overlooking the Hibs Stadium near Easter Rd. Why on earth i hadn’t thought to buy a mouse sander back then i don’t know. Perhaps it was the gritty authenticity i was after, in those our days of young love.

I had been looking for a glass cabinet for the bathroom wall, and came across this piece in one of the many antiqueries along Causewayside. As it was in the slightly mad shop of Alan Jackson, rather than the nice but overpriced alternatives on said street, it was a decent price at £35 (post-bargaining). The previous owner had attempted a paint effect reminiscent of the morning after several pints of vodka. Gratefully, it seems they used acrylic or some sort of hobby paint, as it came off fairly easily with the judicious use of a paint scraper and avoiding the need for chemical solvents.

I think the cabinet is oak but it seems to have been made up of a number of different bits and hence once sanded back, it was lacking coherence as the wood tones differed throughout. I therefore ended up staining it in order to bring up the natural colour. Having got pretty bored with the scraping i decided to paint the inside bright white, to coordinate with the bathroom and help the contents stand out. And save my sanity.

Weeks later, and today i finished off the job by completing the doors. The glass was in poor condition so i removed the panes, scrubbed them up, and refitted them.

Then comes the fun bit – putting pretty displays inside!

The essentials: a vintage first aid kit collection. (Hey, i am a doctor).

And more upon more tins and to put things in. Like make-up. And glass jars, for no purpose at all.

Just need to find a nice joiner to put it on the wall and we’re all good.

Lord preserve me

Posted on September 1, 2013 by lucy

Though it’s been a delightfully sunny summer, i always look forward to the approach of the autumn. The closing in of a season encourages a natural sense of reflection in me, and my thoughts turn from what has been to what harvests may come. Last autumn we were settling in to our new house and much time was spent putting things here and there and finding a nook or corner for everything. My usual seasonal preserves were thus few and so this perhaps partly explains why i am now gathering produce and preserving it like we’re approaching a major world meltdown.

No summer is complete for me without a trip to Borderberries near Kelso to pick raspberries. At this time of year they are an absolute bargain price so i picked 3 kilos this week, and 1 kilo of redcurrants. This sun was peeking through the canes as i plucked the sweet morsels and as the lady in the next row remarked, ‘the raspb’ries are hingin’ hivvy’. (This can only be deciphered with a ear for the Borders tongue).

The key to good raspberry jam is berries as fresh as you can manage, so i set to work that same evening. The technique itself couldn’t be simpler, adding an equal weight of sugar and boiling til setting point – usually about 10 minutes later. Or refer to the jam thermometer.

If you ever consider preserving, do invest in a jam funnel. Saves you chipping rock-hard bits of jam off your surfaces for a few hours afterwards.

Day 2 and i was onto the redcurrant jelly. This involves the slightly arduous task of using a straining bag, which seems to ever evade me as it all gets horribly stuck in the material and fails to strain properly. Into the bargain, it appears not to have actually reached setting point, and consequently we have several jars of what could only loosely be described as ‘jelly’. Plus, as you can see, a very messy kitchen table.

But when all else fails, a bit of simple pimping is called for. Bring out your best Kidston fabric, dicky up the jars and you’ll be wondering why you ever left the WI.

Come september and i tend to focus on preserves i actually eat, like chutney.

Guest is best: stage one

Posted on August 25, 2013 by lucy

August arrived and i found I had an itch to scratch – redecorating the guest room. I have long admired the all-white look, and figured it might just be possible in a lesser-used room such as this. In any case, anything would be better than an old beige carpet paired with insipid yellow walls.

It seems that unless there is a lot of natural light in the room, white tones can turn grey and pallid in low light, so this being a sun-drenched south facing room makes it ideal for the palette. The quintessential white room must contain white floorboards, and having peeled up the old carpet in our bedroom last year to reveal beautiful pine boards, i reckoned the guest room would be similar. Indeed i was most delighted to find the original floor in pristine condition, well sealed and with only a single layer of ugly dark stain to contend with. It’s a draughty old house we have and removing carpet initially seemed a bit counterintuitive, but as usual form over function won and i reasoned that an injection of warm colour into the room in other ways would hopefully distract the shivering guest.

For experts in white paint one can look no further than my favourite friends Mr Farrow and Mrs Ball. They have a vast range of the non-colour which in certainly made the choosing all the more arduous. As Gemma and I perused the range in the Stockbridge shop for nearly an hour, she aptly coined the discussion ‘a most middle class experience’. 4 testers and 4 days later, but none the wiser i opted for Great White, with grey undertones, for the floor and woodwork, and Pointing, an off-white, for the walls. I was hesitant about the room adopting the austere feel of a low budget asylum so as a minor compromise (probably only obvious to me) I softened the look a little by going for a creamier tone on the walls.

F&B paint not being the cheapest substance, i tried to avoid my usual shortcuts and thus committed to sanding down the floors in case over time the floor paint rubbed off the oily stain underneath. Initially this was to take place within another blatant short-cut involving completing one half of the floor, and moving the furniture onto it before doing the second half.

Work commenced with a belt sander….

But proceedings were halted after 10 minutes when it became clear the task was something akin to washing the floor with a toothbrush. Into the bargain this put paid to my other shortcut, as the job suddenly became infinitely more heavy-duty….

I hired a proper floor sanding machine and did untold damage to my eardrums and probably the floorboards too with this hefty piece of kit. Though not a job for the fainthearted, the beautiful pine boards eventually emerged from their toxic captivity and without much ado i got to work on the undercoat. Before long the boards were painted and we were testing the integrity with some gratuitous tap dancing. So far, no chips.

The macaron challenge

Posted on August 6, 2013 by lucy

July wasn’t an easy month, and with that i felt the need to mark some of the difficult days with some beauty. And what could be more delicately gorgeous than french macarons, made famous by the Parisian patisserie Laduree, but now sweeping the globe as the latest chic treat for young and old. My friend Lora was the first to master the art, and educate me on the maracon/macaroon debate (the latter a coconut affair with a glace cherry on top – so wrong). The prospect of using a piping bag seemed like way too much precision to appeal to me, but as it turned out, a very therapeutic afternoon was spent early last week squeezing these ‘little shits’ (self-named, in reference to the brown ones) onto my pencil-marked baking parchment. Before long i was applying pink colouring like a 4 year old, and turning out the following on day 3 of the maracon challenge…

Sadly, day 2 wasn’t such a merry affair, with these lime and basil macarons from Ottolenghi demonstrating all the classic flaws: cracked tops, lack of feet or ‘pieds’ (the little bubbly bits at the bottom of each half – very important), and a notably dry texture. They should be light and chewy to the taste, ‘melt in the mouth’, not the crisp sweetness of a classic meringue, though the ingredients only differ by one, namely the addition of finely sieved ground almonds. But let us not be deceived; the secret of the macaron lies not in the mere components, but the skill of the patissier at the helm.

Macarons come in many fantastical flavours, and traditionally with a buttercream filling. I find the additional sweetness a little overpowering so i have taken to adopting a chocolate ganache filling in preference, which can be laced with alcohol of your choosing.

Macarons also provide a welcome opportunity for some very pretty photography subjects.

But what to do with all those pesky egg yolks? There’s only so much eggs benedict one can eat, though in this house we may be attempting to break some kind of world record. This calls for another culinary creative outlet: home-made ice cream.

I perused and subsequently bought this lovely book in Waterstones last week. I have found there aren’t many reliable ice cream recipes online, so this was a welcome addition to my expanding cook book collection. This guy has been making ice cream for the family business in the Cotswolds for years. Intriguing flavours include sloe gin and damson, earl grey tea, and chocolate chilli rosemary. I made a start with coffee choc chip.

My most recent macaron batch, mocha, was perhaps my favourite. A bit bumpy on the outside, but chewy and just enough coffee and chocolate to bring about a nice flavour blend.

The macaron challenge ended on day 4, but i like to think that’s because i have mastered the art perfectly….

Hot charcoals

Posted on July 31, 2013 by lucy

Sometimes, life doesn’t go quite the way you expect nor hope.

Sort of like many of my sewing and painting projects, which of late have proven to be both blessing and curse. A blessing when you are able to make a nice homemade personalised gift for a friend. [Insert nice picture of tweed patchwork quilt or nappy pouch, recently made but hastily dispatched before being able to take a picture]. A curse when you realise you don’t actually know what you are doing, or why the project is going so wrong.

Such is the case with my latest curtain escapade. Having contracted with myself never to do any more curtains after the drama of the living room ones (still unfinished), somehow i ended up doing another set for the bedroom. It’s the gift of those rose tinted glasses i often wear. i was thinking, it’s surely just a matter of cutting out some big rectangles and sewing them together. And these ones don’t even require the tricky business of joining panels together, so its gonna be a cinch. What can go wrong? Ha!

I found this luscious charcoal velvet on ebay, and some good quality lining fabric. Cutting out went swimmingly. To sew the linings, you make a big tube out of the outer and inner fabrics, turn it inside out, and then sew on the heading tape at the top, and hem the bottom. What i was blissfully unaware of was the difficulty in sewing some very heavy fabric, namely velvet, to some lighter fabric, the lining. Enter: Tension Problem. No amount of twiddling the blessed dials on my machine would allow me to successfully make these two fabrics happy bedfellows. Whilst the velvet would create a tight stitch, the lining would do the opposite, resulting in a twisted mess that hung at about 30 degrees from the traditional vertical inclination of an obedient curtain. After about 5 sewing and ripping out sessions, i bundled the haberdashery offenders up in my sewing room and forgot about them for a few weeks until inspiration hit: forget sewing them together, just join them at the top and leave the two hanging separately.

This proved a success and after a short stint at the machine i was hanging my velvet curtains like we were best of friends. Here they are looking swanky in our bedroom.

Staying with the charcoal theme, i decided to paint the shelves at the end of our bed in a similar moody hue. I have previously lauded Farrow & Ball paints here before, and in this latest project I was busy congratulating myself on my daring choice of “Downpipe’ eggshell. Especially as the subject was this beautiful handmade oak shelving unit, which could have easily contented itself in it’s former unadulterated solid wood state.

This didn’t last, once i realised that failing to use the appropriate primer underneath (a cost-saving initiative on my part) affects the finish and drying time of F&B paints. These shelves took around 4 days to dry, and even now my delicately placed trinkets tend to stick fast to the surface.

Here we have shelf one decorated by me, with pointless items such as vintage shoe inserts and bricks. Shelf two is carefully crafted by Malkie, with items such as…. shoes?! What daring functionality!!

‘Vintage find’ tribute

Posted on June 12, 2013 by lucy

The phrase ‘vintage find’ seems to crop up everywhere these days, to the point that it’s getting a bit annoying. That said, i am about to write a post detailing all my recent ‘vintage discoveries’ shall we say, as its been a while since i gloated…i mean…shared the wealth of my recent travels around Edinburgh’s bargain trail.

Exhibit 1: The meadows festival in June is always ripe pickings for a canny eye. Here we have a lovely vintage wool picnic blanket rescued from the 20p box.

Exhibit 2: Birdies. I do love birdies. This (larger) picture also emerged from the 20p box. Got a clear theme going on here above my mantle. The illustration above is by my friend Julie, as an album cover.

Exhibit 3: This reminds me that last year I came away with this absolute steal: a set of Woodsware ‘Jasmine’ teacups and plates for £1. These are becoming hot property folks. Get ’em while you can.

Exhibit 4: (ok the ‘exhibit’ thing is wearing thin so hereafter i shall adopt a more traditional numeric approach). Also from the Meadows festival: a pretty gold-lined glass storage jar, to add to the bathroom collection of similar wares. 20p box again.

Five: Its not often i buy anything i can sew up myself, but the horsey fabric on these cushion seats really caught my fancy, and i knew they’d fit perfectly on my 4 Ercol Quaker dining chairs. Its like Cath Kidston, but before she popularised (butchered?) the country/floral/kitsch themes of early and mid-century fabric design. These come from one of my my regular haunts, Drum Farm Antiques.

Six: I am hoping to develop a new cushion design incorporating some of the embroidery peices i have picked up over the years. This recent find, also from the 20p box, stands alone as a beautiful sample which itself would/will make a great cushion cover.

Seven: I have acquired quite a few of these vintage shoe horns. They come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes. Functional vintage items are becoming very popular as display.

Eight: I tend to grab material when i see it rather than work out its potential purpose at the time. This works well for patchworking. I fancied these 2 off-cuts from Shelter charity shop in Tollcross. Guess what – birdies again!

Nine: The ceiling lights are pretty dull in this house. But least they aren’t ugly. This one has been tarted up for just £5 with these 5 mismatched lampshades, also from Shelter in Tollcross.

Ten: Copper pans. Love. £5 from St Columba’s Hospice charity shop, Leith

Eleven: Last but not least, these ultimate ‘finds’ have just arrived in the house this afternoon. I’ve lauded Ercol chairs in previous posts already, but i have not yet ventured into anything more substantial than dining chairs. Certainly the brand is enjoying a revival and in researching these chairs i discovered that a fully restored ‘studio couch’ (of which these chairs are a match) will sell for up to £1000. Handmade, solid elm wood and steam-bent to shape, this is well made furniture. These ones date from 50s-60s, they will need new webbing but the frames are incredibly solid for their age. This was certainly a high risk purchase though, which i don’t often do. I saw them on eBay on sunday night, ending in 20 minutes and for collection in Edinburgh. This seemed too good to be true, but didn’t allow any time to ask questions, view etc. I paid slightly more than i had hoped at £120 for the pair, but I was a bit giddy on opportunity (i have been looking for a pair for a while now), and is further confirmation of why i still find auctions super stressful! I collected them today and was grateful that they were true to the description. I will re-upholster them in time, but the tartan doesn’t seem so bad in real life.

And to finish, a very nice gift from my pal Ali, discovered in the family dressing up box and originally belonging to his granny. Check out the wonderful ‘housewife’ style tunic design…

Ercol-our

Posted on June 5, 2013 by lucy

Mid-century is of course the must-have furniture era these days. Ercol or G-plan for the everyday but quality items, and maybe an Eames or Jacobsen chair as a statement piece. I love Ercol chairs and managed to pick up 3 for £10 in a sale room in the Borders a few years ago. I had previously held them in such esteem that painting them was out of the question, even though they were not in great condition with a lot of water stains. I then decided life was too short to hold any chair in great esteem, and was inspired by a friend to try some spray painting.

The pictures in this post are taken with my iphone; spray paint and expensive DSLRs don’t make merry bedfellows. Plus i am experimenting with different picture styles for the blog as it has recently proved tricky to photograph every project i undertake.

I started with some primer, a lovely grey shade that i quite fancied! Having sprayed the whole chair in about 30 seconds, i instantly decided i was going to be a big fan of spray painting. It was dry in 30 mins, so i got straight to work applying the red.

Normally its a whole day job to paint furniture, waiting for each layer to dry, and removing any big globs of paint before doing the next layer. When the piece is not going to be distressed, it helps if the finish is really pristine and super smooth. Spray painting seems just the ticket for getting this kind of finish. I got the paints from eBay, and chose a satin finish. Its quite fashionable now to have glossy paints in bold colours but i haven’t quite recovered from my youth whereby lots of things in our house were painted white gloss; not very attractive (but quite functional i suppose!)

The red layer went on in about 5 minutes, and again was touch dry in about 10. True to form, it only occurred to me afterwards to check the surrounding area for rogue paint dispersal. I was working just outside the flat and there does now appear to be a red tinge to the side of the house and the gravel but no matter! Perhaps a better set-up would be advisable, with covers all around the working area, as these modern spray paints are designed to emerge as a very fine mist hence it does kind of go everywhere.

The finished article has a lovely finish, so smooth and uniform! Sadly i think we sat on them a bit prematurely and a lot of fluff seemed to gather on the seats after a few days, as well as a slight peeling noise when disengaging one’s derriere. I subsequently re-sprayed the chairs and applied a wax layer to the seat in order to make them more durable.

I’m really pleased with the results, and am glad to have taken the plunge into bright colours, my usual style being mid-tone greys, greens etc. Many people ask me how i have the time to do so may projects (and in response always point out the lack of little people in our house), but this project made me think of all those mums out there longing to do creative projects but lacking the time and energy required to see it through. If so, spray painting is for YOU!

I would say however that the one disadvantage of spray painting is the limited color range. If it’s a basic bright colour you need, eg hot pink, scarlet, you can easily find these but having worked with F&B paints mainly, and appreciated the fine attention to tonal range within these paints, i think there may be limited opportunity for more spray painting for me.

Having really embraced the red theme in the kitchen, i am now feeling inspired to search out more red highlights and delights. This evening i was checking out this website of vintage kitchenalia; probably a dangerous endeavour as i have now gathered a whole host of new collection aspirations. I was interested to read how popular brightly coloured vintage pyrex and melanine are becoming, as well as ‘Skyline’ utensils, of which i already have quite a few. I can feel a red vintage kitchenalia fetish coming on….

Bettering the bathroom

Posted on May 29, 2013 by lucy

I’ve been spending some time working on the bathroom lately. Its was fairly recently fitted when we bought the place so there wasn’t really an argument for replacing it. (Unfortunately). I decided to just do some ‘tweaks’ to make it a bit more homely. Sadly i forgot to do any ‘before’ pictures so perhaps this doesn’t quite tell the story. If you were really interested, the home report is still available online; glancing at some of the pictures now its nice to see the place transformed a bit from its former slightly drab self.

Beginnings occurred in the usual way, ie getting some furniture painted up. I recently wrote a post about furniture painting with Annie Sloan chalk paint, which i would like to now refute completely as i have wholeheartedly changed my mind and gone back to Farrow & Ball. It is simply much better quality paint, gives a tough, satin finish, and comes in the most delicious color range. I was previously limited in choice by Homebase’s rubbish range but then (dangerously) discovered an F&B shop in Stockbridge, with every colour always in stock. It was a bit like a sweetie shop for grown-ups. I managed to escape from my first visit with just 3 different tins, which should see me through the next few weeks of projects.

This shelving unit originally came from the salvage yard in Musselburgh. It has been reincarnated a few times, being a shoe rack for a while, and nearly a planter when it first came into the house. I painted it in ‘Vert de Terre’, a fresh apple-y grey green.

The colour choice came about serendipitously, through this fabric which i wasn’t too sure about initially. It was a scrap of slightly shiny material which i reckoned would do well for a steamy room. I removed the doors from the under-sink cupboard as they were a bit boring and rickety into the bargain, and replaced them by making this curtain. The bathroom fitter appears to have added a wine rack to the left of the sink unit; rolled up towels are about the only thing i can think to put in there!

I also covered the top of this storage box which i found on the street a few years ago. It also got the F&B treatment…

These shelves came from Tullyroan and I have been quite pleased i stole them as they have come in handy in a few different places. Again, though not very obvious in this picture, they are also painted to match. Here you can see one of my collection of vintage first aid kits. Hey, what do you expect from a vintage aficionado doctor!

The panelling on the side of the bath was pretty ugly before – grey tiles poorly fitted together with sealant bulging out at every angle. I got this tongue-and-groove panelling done, to bring a….surprise surprise….country feel to the room! We also had the dreadful lino lifted, and sanded down the floors to reveal the beautiful golden pine beneath.

Its taking shape, but still a few bits to do including replacing the Ikea shelving with a glass wall cabinet (when i find one), and some pretty lighting to follow. And that should do it for a year or two!

J&J tie the knot

Posted on May 12, 2013 by lucy

A few weeks ago I pictured the wedding of the lovely Jonathan and Joanna Daykin. There were vintage flavours throughout the day so i ended up bringing a similar look to many of the pictures.