Working from home in three phases

Phase 1 - Glee: SO nice! No colleagues. No questions. Such focus! In my kingdom I control the thermostat and the biscuits.

Phase 2 - Distraction: Who are all these day-time people outside? Noise! Is that what my house sounds like in the day? Tea!

Phase 3 - ALONE: No human contact. Am now Gollum. Colleagues don't even know I'm gone. Wait by door till Andrzej gets home.

New office

Dream abodes

I'm currently in the process of buying a house. It's got me going a little bit crazy. I am, as I'm sure most first time buyers do, spending a lot of time dreaming about what I can make of my future house.

My two favourite places for abode-based day-dreaming are:

Cabin Porn - A stream of idyllic cabins and remote homes that somewhat satisfy a craving for rustic, back-to-nature living.

Via Cabin Porn

Bohemian Homes - A Tumblr of beautiful spaces, objects, rooms and homes, from hammocks to herbs and from plants to palaces.

Via Bohemian Homes

Painted feathers

Feathers cut from an old piece of leather and painted with acrylics, destined for a garland in my living room.

Misc pesto

While making up (inventing sounds fat too grand) this roast beetroot, sweet potato and goats cheese tart, I also made up some misc pesto.

As the name implies, it's made up of left over bits of miscellaneous green things, mainly coriander stalks and the tail ends of some spring onions.

Sounds dubious right?

However, if you blend coriander stalks and spring onion tops with parmesan and olive oil you get a surprisingly tasty, and violently green, sauce.

I served mine as a dressing for some al dente purple sprouting broccoli. Proof that not wasting food is delicious. 

Roast beetroot, sweet potato and goats cheese tart

There's been a bit of food improv going on this evening and after some culinary disasters earlier in the week I'm pleased to announce it all worked out alright.

Wholemeal pastry filled with a roast sweet potato and thyme puree then topped with roast beetroot and plenty of goats cheese.

Shortcrust pastry for this kind of tart (or quiche) is easy. All you need to remember really is half as much fat as flour.

For this tart I used 200g of wholemeal flour and 100g of butter, plus as many tablespoons of cold water that it takes to form a dough ball. 

However, you can vary the type of flour (wholemeal or plain) and the fat (all butter or mixing in some lard) as you wish and it should still work out ok.

London Life: Burgess Park, Southwark