Sunday Soup - Cauliflower

There was no Sunday Soup post last week, as I went out to our local for a lovely roast dinner instead.

Normal service has been restored this week, and this was the leftover contents of my fridge today.


Actually, the boy was Queen of the Fridge this week and his random scattergun approach to shopping has also left me with a pack of chicken thighs and some aubergines. I've never seen a recipe for aubergine soup, and I'm assuming that there's a good reason for that, so I put them firmly back in the fridge.

I'm using a Delia recipe as a basis, but faffing with it a bit. The original can be found here

Recipe

1 cauliflower (recipe says about 570g but I didn't bother weighing it
50g cheese (Delia used roquefort but says you can use whatever you've got - I'm using a mix of parmesan and cheddar)
2 bay leaves
25g butter
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
1 large leek, trimmed, washed and chopped
110g potato (this equates to one medium size spud if you can't be bothered to weigh them)
1 garlic clove
1 litre of light veg stock (Delia made her own with the cauliflower stalks and trimmings, I consider life too short for this sort of thing and used a stock cube/gel thingy)
60ml double cream

Melt the butter in large saucepan over a gentle heat, then add the onion, celery, leek, garlic and potato, cover and let the vegetables gently cook for 15 minutes.

Add stock, bay leaves and chuck in cauliflower florets. Simmer gently for 25 minutes.

Remove bay leaves, blitz with a blender, then stir in cream and cheese, and add some pepper if you feel like it. Don't let it boil.

And tada! Soup!


Turned out quite nice actually. Not as thick as my previous soupy experiements, so I think my ratio of stock to other stuff was a bit better this time.

Custom Name Necklaces

I love doing name necklaces. As I may have mentioned previously, cutting things from silver sheet with tiny sawblades is one of my favourite things.

I made this one for a lovely London Rollergirl just before she moved away a few months ago now, but hadn't got around to uploading the pictures.

Tada!
Tricky font to work with that one, all fine lines and squiggly bits, but I like a challenge!

This is a more recent piece, commissioned for another London Rollergirl based on her team, the Suffrajets, logo - which looks like so:

And here's the necklace:

I've done a couple of pieces based on the same logo in the past, which can be seen here, but this was the first one where I got to use my fledgling engraving skills. Am self-teaching, which mainly means I'm taking large chunks out of my fingers with the gravers!

Anyway, some more custom things coming your way soon, but farewell for now.

Custom Shiny Skates

So, I mentioned that I’d been working on a couple of new personalised derby skate necklaces recently. Well, here they are!

Silver winged skate with a little shiny 23 and black and white gemstones:

This was made for a rollergirl from New Zealand – I wonder which league/team there skates in black and white...

And another custom skater number, this time on a separate chain from the skate:

I do like making the little numbers – they take a while to cut out by hand, then curve all the edges and engrave the detail, but it’s so worth it when they’re finished!

Now onwards! I have more moustaches to finish, a flamey heart to make a master for, and some pearl stringing to learn about.

Best get on with it then...

Look – Hallmarks!

I’ve finally had something come back from the Assay Office with a big enough hallmark to actually photograph!

And here it is:

That little LG mark in the oval – that’s mine that is, and no-one else registered with the London office can ever have that little oval with those initials so it’s completely unique to me.

You can see the rest of the shiny thing that the mark is stamped onto soon, once it’s been posted out to it’s owner...

More Shiny Things

After a slightly crazy couple of weeks of orders, I've been back at the bench working hard on some rather lovely new shiny things. Well, I think they're lovely anyway. One of the worries of only designing and making things that I love and want to wear is that I could possibly be a small island of mental, floating along by myself on a sea of delusion, and no-one else will ever want to wear them!

Anyway, here's a sneaky work in progress picture. They don't look like much just yet, and they're not shiny at all, as I've just been waving all the fire at them, but hopefully they'll be finished soon.


My attention has been diverted from them slightly though, due to getting more orders than I can shake a stick at, hurrah! I'm working on a couple of custom derby roller skate necklaces with the numbers and team colours I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, some silver moustaches and a very special necklace. Can't wait to share them!

For now though, I must bid farewell and potter back to my workbench, as some shiny wheels need attaching to skates.

Sunday Soup - Carrot and Parsnip

For the past couple of weeks, I've been taking anything left over in the fridge on Sundays and making experiemental soup from it. It's gone surprisingly well, so I thought I'd try and do it every week and blog the results.

This week, there was some carrots and a couple of sad looking parsnips left over. Easy!

Recipe: Carrot and Parsnip Soup

1tbsp butter, softened and a glug of olive oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
around 500g carrots, peeled and chopped
2 large parsnips, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp freshly grated root ginger
1 clove of garlic
600ml vegetable stock
60ml (4fl oz) single cream
Salt and ground black pepper
Couple of handfuls of red lentils (optional, but they were in the cupboard staring at me!)

Melt butter, cook onion gently for 3 or 4 minutes. Add parsnips and carrots and soften for 10mins or so.

Add garlic and ginger, stir for a couple of minutes. Add stock, simmer for 10mins then add lentils. Simmer for another 20mins until vegetables are cooked.

Blitz with a stick blender, then stir in cream and season with salt and pepper. Done!

It did turn out a bit thick - I'd probably add more stock if I did this one again...

Shiny Moustaches

You've been asking for them, and here they are! (Well, almost...)

Ever since I made a pair of custom moustache wedding rings way back in 2010, swiftly followed by a little moustache charm and a ring, I've been meaning to make more things with this little 'tache design as they're so cute!

I've had a moustache charm here on my website since its launch, which has been pretty popular, and a ring, but I also fancy making some earrings and maybe some cufflinks and anything else I can think of putting moustaches on really!

Recently I've been getting a ton of requests for more moustache jewellery in silver and gold (it's weirdly been one of the top search terms on my website for the past year or so). So, I'm finally getting off my bum and making some more things with the designs that have been living in my sketchbook forever!

Here's a couple of work in progress shots of my moustache castings - the finished shiny moustaches should be ready for photographing soon....

Check back soon for more moustaches!