THE RECIPE - Cheese Ham and Olive Loaf

So, a friend at work (Maria) got into a phase of bringing in luscious food they'd baked, and the best of these was a loaf / slice thing containing olives and ham. I must have eaten about half of it cos not everyone was keen, but it you like olives and ham, and cheese, you've LOVE THIS!!!

So I can't find it anywhere online so I will retype here. For credit, it was in the BBC Good Food Magazine in March, sent in by the wonderfully-named Anne Shrimpton from Lincoln.

I bring you: Cheese Ham and Olive Loaf

Serves 10 (ahem) Prep 15 mins (woohoo) Cook 55-60 mins

Ingredients

150ml / quarter pint of dry white wine

4 eggs

150ml / quarter pint olive oil

250g / 9oz self-raising flour

140g / 5oz Gruyere cheese, grated

200g / 8oz thick slice ham

140g / 5oz pitted green olives

140g / 5oz pitted black olives

Method

1. Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C / gas 5.

Butter a 900g / 2lb loaf tin and line with baking parchment. Beat the white wine and eggs until frothy. Add the oil and sift in the flour, mixing until smooth. Stir in the remaining ingredeinents to combine, then season with salt and pepper.

2. Pour into the prepared loaf tin, smoothing the surface with the back of a sppon. Bake in the oven for 55-60 mins until golden brown and firm to the touch. Cool on a wire rack before cutting into slices, and serving with some chutney or a bowl of soup

Per serving: 368 kcalories, protein 14g, carbs 20g, sat fat 7g, fibre 2g, sugar 1g, salt 2.1g

So there it is, typed in from a photocopy of a photocopy.

TIP: Maria used cooked gammon instead of ham which I suspect made it as wonderful as it was.

When I eventually get round to making this, I will be sure to post some photos :)

New goodies in my shop!

Throughout the horrible wet summer (and current horrible wet autumn) I've been dabbling with making earrings and some other stuff, and I decided this morning that the time has come to put some of it up for sale.

I've started with earrings - and why not. They are my favourite thing to make - it's where I started and I keep coming back to it.

Enjoy!

Mooooooo Cards

Sepia Bead #1
Originally uploaded by pebblesfromheaven

I've just ordered some Moo cards.

Took some arty farty shots to put on them...

Ahhh!!!! Real Klimts, in the flesh, at Tate Liverpool.

Evening.

Apologies for my long absence - it's a guilt thing. Too many other things to do, you know how it is. I've been spending far too much time on my flickr account hence the recent linkages, which are very handy indeed.

Update on the blackbirds: we came home one day to find the nest empty, after the babies were almost falling out of it due to their immense size. Our cats didn't seem too bothered; the birds got used to Benny asleep in the middle of the grass and just hopped around her! We saw one of the fledglings later that day but they disappeared after that; we just saw the parents again yesterday and they look as if they are now on their own... guess we'll never know what happened.

As the title of this post suggests, it was something amazing which inspired today's post. This week we've been off work and although a large part of the time was spent doing boring catchy-up type things, we decided to visit Liverpool because I'd heard about the Klimt exhibition.

I went to Liverpool with work a few times but didn't get to hang around much; besides it's changing like a very changeable thing at the moment due to it being European City of Culture 2008. There's a huge Arena now, which is where we parked, just beside the Albert Dock.

The Tate Gallery in Liverpool has Rodin's The Kiss in the foyer, presumably on permanent display. After a short wait (only about 30 mins) just to tease us of course, we entered the Klimt exhibition...... and were first greeted by a great wall covered with a swirly tree-of-life mock up. The ground floor of the gallery is given over to a display of the Beethoven frieze, so straight away the visitor gets to see the delicate gold-leafed meaty art in the flesh. I stood for a while to study the detail of the patterns; in parts rather sketchy but perhaps this was never meant to be scrutenised from 2 feet away...

A hop up in the service lift takes you up to the top floor of the Tate, where the full Klimt experience is felt. The exhibition is not 100% Klimt; now that could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view but because the other bits were Mackintoshes and general art-crafts-deco period, I though it was very well-balanced and broke the gallery up into sections which told the story of what was influencing Klimt's life. I particularly enjoyed seeing photos of the man himself, complete with artist's smock, then a real one alongside (strangely and sadly free from paint).

There are some XXX-rated images in a little side-room which remind you that he was a fully redblooded male who appreciated a special sort of beauty, most of it redheaded!

So there were the landscapes... the nudes ... the women ... all masterpieces.

But my favourite was saved until last ... I can't really describe how I felt when I saw this but it actually made me quite emotional - it was the beauty and the drama, the colours, the shine, the glow, the facial strain, the size, the familiarity and intimacy of an image which I've studied for years in detail, cutting bits off into smaller frames, focusing onto parts of it like knowing the back of my own hand. And here it was, slightly taller than me, face to face, in full colour, in the flesh, with gorgeous goldleaf frame, the real thing. WOW. It's bringing another little tear to my eye right now.

I bring you: Judith II (Salome)...



NB: Salome: Often depicted her as an icon of dangerous female seductiveness, doing the Dance of the Seven Veils and requesting the death of John the Baptist. Oscar Wilde wrote a play where she makes necrophilic love to the severed head of John the Baptist. Wow!

My New Website!!

I've invested in a "complete package" product which on first attempts seems as easy as blogger to use - that is to say, easier once you know how but better than trying to use html.

I've put up some photos of some of my jewellery creations - but I have a shop on there with the intention of at least making the software pay for itself!!

I'm quite chuffed with it - and although there's room for a blog on it I'll probably keep this one going with general stuff and keep t'other one for stuff to do with making jewellery.

So! Please take a look, browse about, and let me know what you think!!

cheers

www.pebblesfromheaven.co.uk

Whithorn Bead Pendant

Whithorn Bead Pendant
Originally uploaded by pinkpebbleperson

We visited Whithorn on Easter Sunday. There were lots of visitors there enjoying the view or the history ... I was doing this too of course but I was strangely drawn to the pebbles on the beach ...

I think this one is some sort of mudstone. There are some glints of quartz in the brown but it needed brightened up.

I used some terracotta beads from a necklace I bought in Lockerbie charity shop, with peyote stitching. I was going to add some embellishments but after wearing it on a simple bit of leather I can say that it does feel finished, and very nice the play with ;-)

Rock Art Necklace

As part of a colourway challenge on the Bead Buddies forum, I chose to use some bits & bobs I had lying around but hadn't found a good home for yet.

The rock art motif disc is from a shop in the Kilmartin Museum - I have another as a keyring!!

The little white stone discs were part of a bracelet I bought during my trip to Capri - a cheap elasticated number which lasted about two days before snapping - I made sure I picked up all the beads though ...

The plain white star-shaped and crinkle beads were part of a necklace I bought years and years ago from a carboot sale.

Rowantree's Pinktastic Brooch

This arrived in the post for me today - isn't it fab?!?!

Thanks Rowan!!

Thanks "Flame Force Five"!

Take a look at these babies:



Aren't they just gorgeous?!

They are proper real handmade lampworked glass beads. Made by playing with fire, so quite appropriate that they should be so bright!

Can you believe, I actually won these? By luck? Incredible! I never win anything!!

The deal is I have to turn them into proper bits of jewellery, which is a massive problem because I can't stop stroking them for long enough to see them imprisoned onto wire or cord... it's so sad.

Thanks Sarah!

check out her website Flame Force Five - lots more glassy loveliness

Pebs = Procrastinator Extraordinaire & Bull Shitter

This weekend, I have been mostly thinking and not doing. By the time I've squeezed out all these bubbling creative juices dry, there'll be an awful mess... ooze all over the place...

I've rearranged my workspace, drilled some holes, joined a new forum, spent some money, spent some more money, and dreamt of spending even more money than that ten times over.

So I've decided I definitely need to sell some of my stuff. I have to get over any modesty, false or real, forget any excuses and just go for it.

So keep watching this space... please ...

New Year ... New Me?

Happy New Year!

Well it's my last day off today (Scottish workers get an extra bank holiday for Hogmanay - not that they're reinforcing stereotypes or anything... ) so it's time to catch up, clear out, tidy up and panic in time for returning to work tomorrow.

Actually all those plans for making the most of time off have been wasted as usual. This is the point when I tell myself that lazing around is just as purposeful for its de-stressing benefits ...
The weather has been awful and I've had a cold; but thankfully we forced ourselves to get out on Sunday and drove all the way to Wakefield to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The great draws were the Andy Goldsworthy exhibition and the jewellery craft fair that is taking place until February. Also, it was the only area within driving distance that was going to see fairly decent weather, so we made the effort and it was well worth it! I didn't realise how close to the M1 it is, and how close to a regular hotel I used to stay at in my previous life - doh!

Anyway, the reason I found out about the craft and jewellery exhibition was that I was researching Nick Hubbard. I have a silver ring I bought years ago at a Dazzle craft fair in Glasgow and I wanted to see some of his more recent stuff.

Here's the ring in question: it's oxidised silver, handcrafted - nice!


I remember paying a healthy amount for it at the time but sadly I can't wear it because it's a tiny bit tight - hence my research to find out if I should sell or hoard or wear as a pendant (still not decided!) anyway it turns out this piece was made in 1994, just before he launched his designer jewellery range which makes the whole thing a wee bit more interesting ...

There were lots of other pieces by other artists which I found incredibly interesting too... I left feeling so inspired that I actually had to get my sketchbook out when I got home, and had a sleepless night whirring ideas around inside my brain... fairly unlike me, I have to say.

My evening class has also stirred up repressed creativity which has been buried for what feels like years. I started it in September - enamelling and silversmithing. I have to say it was the silversmithing that caught my attention but I have enjoyed the enamelling a lot too; it gives real satisfaction for a relatively small time investment. I will try to post some pictures up as soon as I work out a good way of photographing it.

I was thinking this morning that I have been dabbling with crafty things (mostly jewellery) for about 24 years now. How scary is that?!

I used to sell bits and bobs to family and friends back when I was about 18, and now I often make things as gifts. I haven't sold anything for years, but that exhibition at YSP inspired me; I've been investigating other courses and possibilities to such an extent that I have been tying myself up in ever tightening knots. I should perhaps stick with what I know and widen the circle gradually...

Watch this space!

Oh and I might fancy a blog revamp at some point too.

My photos of YSP:

Don't Panic! First Day

I start my new job today. If it goes really bad at least I'll have my enamelling class to look forward to tonight - I've bought some copper blanks from eBay so I won't be going empty handed this time. I've had lots of ideas!

We went across to Northumberland on Saturday, and yesterday was spent sorting out the photographs we took. I'm quite addicted to Flickr - so much so that I was gutted when I got thrown out of one of their groups for not following their (hellishly bloody) complicated rules! Well they can sod off. I started my own Carlisle group cos there wasn't one - I have civic pride even if no-one else does.

I made a lovely byriani last night. The way I've spelled it there you'd think it was Italian. Suppose I must get ready.

Metal Dreams

I dreamt last night that someone told me that Ozzy Osbourne had died. At the time, I was sitting on a table of strangers some who turned out to have known him well. One brave soul wandered off so we couldn't see him cry (he used to work with him). This is all because I was listening to a Roy Wood interview on the radio last night.

On the way back from ... my very first enamelling class! Wooooo! A new hobby.

It's very inspiring. I've had lots of ideas.

A few years ago I used to go to a stained glass-making evening class, when I lived in Northumberland. It was just to get me out of the house and talk to people instead of being stuck inside; as well as something I'd always fancied trying. It was very enjoyable - I made a few bits of "art" including a landscape for my Mam and Dad, a little beach scene with real pebbles, a huge tulip picture, and lots of little danglers that were used for Christmas presents (I still have some up in my living room as a simple chandelier). I had to stop going when I moved away, but I've still got some of the stuff in a cupboard.

This new craft opportunity comes because I wanted a stained glass replacement but there was nothing exactly the same available locally. This course was the nearest and the most interesting, and also has a subtitle - "small silver work" - which is incredibly attractive to me. When folk ask what my dream job is, I answer "silversmith"...

It appears to be more flexible than stained glass, as you would imagine. I love the materials and the end result so yuuummmmm I have been totally inspired and I drove home with a smile on my face!

It's a gorgeous clear frosty morning - the first of the autumn ...