All my instagrams of our lovely time at Daylesford Organic Farm in the Cotswolds

Hello friends. Here, by request, are the instagrams from our trip. It was great fun sharing the natural beauty of the area – and the kitchen shelves – with you!!

You’re all wondering what happened on our last trip.

I didn’t go up on Monday. We went up on Saturday though and loved it all even more. In a wonderful but terrifying way. Terrifying as in it’s so good it can’t possibly be real. Then got home and thought, well, but we need to keep saving money and if we stay in London for a year or two we can carry on saving and buy a house.

So I didn’t go.
Instead I booked a load of weekends back at the cottage. Holidays for the next year. Still some saving. Some time to get to know the area.

That said, I can’t stop thinking about the house. And the school. And the bluebell woods. And all the things I could do with my time if indeed I did live by the bluebell woods.

Oh heart. Oh head.
Wherefore willst thou lead me?

Let’s wait and see what unfolds…

So far to Kate’s blog – a lovely little discovery today. Pages and pages of beautiful prose. Writing of the sort I’m certain bluebell woods would inspire.

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Thanks very much to John Lewis for sponsoring this post. We shop there a lot so I am more than happy to have them on board as a sponsor!!

Words and art direction by Astrid

Still as beautiful as ever. This part of the world has enchanted us.

We drove through some very rough road with quite deep puddles and big pot-holes to get to Foxholes – today’s destination.

A pristine wood – and at this time of the year of course the bluebells are coming out.
There were fields of sheep and cows; meadows bursting with yellow flowers and nothing but the sound of the gentle May breeze and distant farmyard geese.

So pretty and magical we could have stayed for hours.

Last weekend we went to the most wonderful Honeysuckle Cottage at Daylesford Organic Farm in the Cotswolds.

It was so perfect and so idyllic we’re going back on Monday to look at the local school and a house in a nearby village.

Wish us luck.

When I took these photos it was a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago just before it started to rain. We had been to the garden centre and bought some new plants and then it started to rain and we went inside and put the plants in the kitchen.

The plants are still there, hoping they will be planted soon. The garden is happy and lush. I am happy. Because as you know, rain is my favourite weather. Right up there with crisp, clear Autumn mornings.

But the garden, she is happy. The bluebells are still in flower. The muscari still in bloom. My office looks out over the garden – I moved it down there so I could write, or sew, or take photos – while the girls play in the garden. The landlord was going to put a fancy bespoke fitted kitchen in a very long time ago. And while I do sort of wish he had, I’m also a little bit glad that I can get some work done in my old fashioned sun room and not be cooking in all modernity – while I look out into the lovely garden – now in its second year. It’s coming along very nicely.

And once it stops raining I’ll plant the rest of the plants and have a little bit of an update. Because it has grown a lot with all this wonderful watery weather in Drought stricken London.

This cake just wouldn’t photograph colour-wise. I love the composition though Sorry! I couldn’t bear that photo and had to swap it out. I spent all last week baking and cooking for a digital magazine article that’s due now. Time to finish everything and send it over!

Beautiful day in London today. Today I will be finishing Astrid’s grey double gauze dress – using up some Linnet stash from 2008. Today we’ll be potting up our seeds that are now huge seedlings and possibly having some time to sit down and watch the new Studio Ghibli film Arietty, which I haven’t had a chance to watch yet.

Yesterday we went up to Selvedge and it was closed! Wanted to get some more Liberty bias binding and look at all the lovely things in their shop.

On Friday Yvonne was in London with Anki from Zilver Blauw and we went to Selina Lake’s Homespun Style book party. It was lovely – Cherry came up as well and we had a fun afternoon hanging – just the girls. There’s a photo in Yvonne’s camera which I need to get my hands on.

I was one of the lucky 13 who got a goodie bag with my book purchase. Well worth it – it came with a Mollie Makes magazine, Mollie Makes calendar, a pillowcase from Rose Hip and some other lovely little surprises.

Loving these spring days, especially when there’s a bit of sunshine around.

Look! An Easter tree. We found the perfect branch on the Heath and carried it home and we didn’t blow the eggs. Instead I found a little box of 12 for £3 at Heals which must have been a mistake so I bought them and they assured me that was the right price so we had a lovely Easter tree!

Right. We’re all back here now. All posts are ported back to A+B – although I will be keeping Lovely Food with duplicate content for now. It was a fun adventure trying a new blog. It went well. But I’m A+B and that’s that. And here I am and here I’ll stay.

Sorry if anybody was expecting sewing. It’s all food at the moment. Although, there is sewing in the pipeline. And gardening. And soon we’ll be visiting cousins in Richmond again, and because we like to stay late we always drive even though there is a lovely train from Hampstead Heath all the way to Richmond.

Back in the olden days when I first arrived we got given a car. It took days and days of me calling for car insurance quotes before we found anything – it’s never easy when you first arrive in a country to get yourself sorted. But I digress. The car didn’t last long. It was a Citroen and my boyfriend at the time, who had a habit of ruining my cars, asked what I thought would happen if he adjusted the suspension whilst we were mid-drive. The answer: the car will die and we will be left stranded in Stratford up Avon with a massive garage bill. That’s what will happen.

My point was – I do quite miss not having a car and it’s always lovely to catch the train and watch the world go by. Long weekends are good for that. How nice it was having a four day weekend. How nice it was having all that time to spend with the family, to bake and to sew.

I’ve always been under the impression Sushi was imposible to make and required great skill to get it rolled and that it would all fall apart until I’d spent months practicing. Astrid however was more optimistic, and with a few bouts of pestering me about the nori that had been in the pantry for over a year, I said ok, we’d make sushi.

It took two hours from start to finish – although we did make it again yesterday and it only took an hour.

Makes 18 pieces

What you need

3 sheets pre-toasted nori

Sushi rice
2 cups cooked short grain brown rice*
1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar
1 tablespoon mirin

Filling
1/2 cucumber
1 carrot
6 snowpeas
1/2 avocado
100g fish (use smoked, or fresh sashimi quality fish – or make tuna mayo)
– all sliced into thin strips

Condiments
Wasabi
Shoyu (Japanese soya sauce)
Sushi ginger

How to make

Lay out everything you’ll need.
Lay the nori on the bamboo mat.

Put the rice on the nori – right up to the left and right edges, about 7mm thick. This photo isn’t quite right – you need to push the rice right up to the edges!!

By now you will have very messy fingers and forget to take the all important photo of laying the filling out on the rice. Starting 1cm from the bottom edge of the rice lay out your strips of ingredients in a single layer. Stop laying out your ingredients well before you reach the top edge of the rice (about 2/3 of the way up).

Then you take the mat and carefully begin to roll up the sushi. Keep the top edge of the mat in line with the rolling edge of the sushi and as the sushi rolls in on itself make sure you don’t roll the mat inside with it! Just keep rolling the mat and letting the leading edge fall to the front of the sushi.

Ensure you keep a good, tight roll, without squeezing it too tight. Just stay firm.

I’m not sure if you’re meant to wet the dry edge of the sushi but I did to ensure a good stick.

Once you’ll rolled your sushi it’s time to cut. You’ll need a bowl of water, a good sharp serrated knife (I used a bread knife) and a paper towel to wipe your knife with.

Depending on how messy your edges are you will want to trim them off.

After a few goes you probably won’t need to. Before you cut wet the knife and in a slow sawing motion very carefully cut the sushi pieces – about 1 inch thick.

Clean, wipe and re-wet the knife between each cut ensuring your knife is clean for each cut – otherwise the sushi will end up with wet rice messing it up.

As you cut each slice carefully put the cut sushi onto a flat serving dish or a spare bamboo mat.

Serve immediately with wasabi, ginger and shoyu (soy sauce).

* To make brown rice – I use 2 cups short grain brown rice and 5 cups water. Cook in a pressure cooker for 15 minutes and sit for a further 10 with the lid on. If you don’t have a pressure cooker use the same proportions but boil in a heavy pot for about 40 minutes until steamed.

Last week I went to the Country Living Fair to look at lots of lovely interior and textiles things.  I had three hours from yo to go and when I got there and looked out across all the stands I thought there was no way I could do it.

There were indeed some very lovely objects there – my favourites being the ceramics, ironware, vintage linens and ceramics, and antiques dealers.

It always gets more interesting once you talk to people and find out about what they do and what their story is. Also the one stand I only found when I came back to collect my forgotten coat – the one I found once I’d packed my camera away – that was the stand that was truly full of treats. That was the guy I bought my beautiful old beeswaxed birch breadboard from.

A month ago I didn’t even really have Country Living Magazine on my radar. But when Yvonne came to visit she left her copy at my place and I realised it’s the magazine for me. We’ve just agreed to renew the lease on our house for another two years so I’m very excited about our plans for the house and garden this summer – and what better place to visit than the lovely people who had taken the time to exhibit at the Spring Fair. Didn’t find any wall decals – which is what I was looking for after seeing some amazing wall art in Milk magazine a few months back.

There were some standout designers and makers there: of note were  Linda Bloomfield – ceramics; Alex Pole Ironwork – knives, hooks and fire tools; Caurnie Soap from Scotland – producer of beautiful handmade transluscent soaps with herbs and flowers; Anna Perring – Luna Lighting – lovely porcelain tea light holders; Caroline Zoob – a very carefully curated antique store – just beautiful things; Rosie’s Armoire – lovely fun antique style homewares, textiles and gardenware and Hogben Pottery – very pretty rabbit and robbin mugs and jugs.

Weekend in our house is gardening time. In amongst managing the Edith behaviour. Edith’s terrible twos are peaking. Edith is now three. There was a small Edith break when Astrid and I went to the school open day where our job is to stand outisde and talk to the dads in the garden. Astrid’s job was to eat all the sausage rolls. Which she did a spectacularly good job of.

The girls planted their seeds this weekend. We put compost into the seedling trays and planted sweet peas, tomatoes, sweetcorn, courgettes, red peppers and cucumber (cubumber to Edith). I went a bit overboard buying sweet pea seedlings for the garden – my favourite of favourite plants – and was out in the garden last night as the sun was setting getting them all in the ground.

The kids were waiting at the door – asking when they could eat cake.
Because yesterday evening I baked two new cakes.

Kevin’s been asking for Victoria sponge cakes. And because Kevin had to put up with me shouting yesterday (sorry Kevin) I dusted off the white flour with good intentions – but didn’t bake any Victoria sponges – instead one cherry upside-down cake, and one peach tart. Both amazing. I quite like white flour now. Fine white flour from Doves Farm.

There was some time for editing photos. I’m still way behind so it’s the last time I use the strategy of shooting hundreds of photos to edit during the week. There are just too many. The Country Living Fair was full of pretty things – several of which made it home with me – and I had a great time shooting Hiromi’s Japanese dinner party class. This week. This week right.

On another note – we’re thinking of NYC in late October. Has anybody got a good house or apartment they’d like to rent to us in the Boerum Hill area?

The past few weeks I’ve been playing with some new ingredients. In my quest to bake a decent cake with no butter, sugar or eggs I’ve begun work on removing butter – and had some success on the sugar front.

Replacing the butter, I’ve used coconut oil, which I’ve found works brilliantly as long as I also use it in conjunction with olive oil (50/50). If I don’t use olive oil the first part of the cake process (oil and sugar) doesn’t go white and fluffy. So the olive oil is great for adding volume.

I tried using agave syrup the other week – I used the same amount as sugar but it was far too sweet and made the cake go quite dark so that was no good. I’ve been told to try light Agave next time. In the meantime though I found my favourite honey brand from New Zealand has arrived in the UK, so I bought a jar of Northern Rata to use as my cake sweetener.

This time I used half honey / half sugar, alongside my half coconut / half olive oil mix. Complicated – but so far so good. And good honey isn’t cheap so the sugar stays for now.

My new discovery this week was Einkorn flour – the oldest flour known to mankind. It’s a lovely wholemeal flour and as I like to use a few different flours in my baking I’m happy to add this to the collection. You can substitute it out for spelt or anything else if you can’t find any.

You can also turn this recipe into cupcakes if you like – we did it once and they were lovely. Just decrease the baking time to around 15 minutes and bake until golden brown.

You will need

90g coconut oil
90g olive oil
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup unrefined caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence

3 eggs

1 cup Einkorn flour
1 cup white Spelt flour
1 cup Almond meal (ground almonds)
1/4 cup ground walnuts
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds, coconut chips
1 TBSP poppy seeds

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup milk

Finely grated rind of 2 lemons

How to make

Pre-heat oven to 180°C. We don’t have a fan oven so please ensure you don’t use fan bake.

In a mixer, mix (using the egg whip attachment) together the oils, honey, sugar and vanilla essence until white and fluffy (about 10 minutes).

Gradually beat in the eggs one at a time ensuring each one is thoroughly mixed before adding the next.

In a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients together using a wooden spoon. Then add the lemon rind and mix through.

Add the dry ingredients and then the milk to the oil and egg mix. Blend again briefly to combine the ingredients all together. Don’t over mix.

Grease and line a shallow 12″ tart tin with baking paper – ensuring the baking paper is almost double the height of the sides of the tart tin. I use baking tin liners from Lakeland which are like giant cupcake liners. No more greasing or cutting up baking paper for me!

Pour your cake mix into the lined tin and smooth with a spatula.

Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown. You will know the cake is done if the centre doesn’t wobble when you gently shake the cake tin on the oven shelf – or the usual way of testing with a knife. The knife should only have a few grains of almond meal on it when you pull it back out.

Remove from tin and cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing

1 1/2 cups icing sugar (I use Billington’s golden icing sugar – it’s not white)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl.

Add the lemon juice and rind and mix until the icing is smooth.

Be careful about adding in any extra liquid – if you do need to, do it very gradually as icing can get runny extremely suddenly!

Spread the icing over your cake, starting at the top. Sprinkle with edible flower petals and top with a couple of pretty flowers (I used grape hyacinth / muscari).

Where to buy (UK)
Einkorn flour – Dove Farm
Honey – J Friend and Co from Planet Organic
Unrefined organic caster sugar – Billingtons
Golden icing sugar – Billingtons

This month’s Sweet New Zealand is hosted by My Darling Lemon Thyme

It’s Franklin birthday season from late December to early March. Well, late March if you count Mum, which I suppose one should. Just because she’s no longer on this earthly plane doesn’t change her birthday.

And if you count Kevin, birthdays run from late December to early June. Which really does change the whole Franklin birthday dynamic doesn’t it. We used to be all bunched together very neatly. And now we’re not. And if you include Megs in that, which of course you would, then we also include September and then we’re really spread out.

But the girls, the four girls – all have very neat birthdays. And birthday years. Ours are Capricorns, two years apart. And the cousins, they’re both Pisces, also two years apart, and one year younger than each of ours.

So, if you’re not quite sure what that all means, it means; one is five, one is four, one is three and one is two.

Ding dang dong.

Spring is officially here – it’s the 21st of March – and to prove it I’m as busy as a little bee. There’s a lemon cake in the oven, I’ve just baked a lovely loaf of Einkorn and Spelt bread and I’m off to the Country Living Fair in a few minutes.

My Lightroom is bursting with new photos waiting to be put into blog posts and tonight I’m out shooting a Japanese cooking class.

Happy Spring everyone!