A Taste of the East

I love Indian food and really enjoy cooking it, so I thought I’d share one of my favourites with you.  I know this one isn’t quite as popular in England, but if you’re north of the border you are 99% sure to love pakora.  It’s been my favourite cheap takeaway since I was in my teens, but it absolutely has to have pink pakora sauce with it (none of this dark red stuff some of the kebab shops give you!)

It’s really simple to make.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.  This recipe will make around 60 pieces (perfect for parties, especially as you can make it the day before and heat it up), but believe me you will eat some when you’re making it!

• 300g gram flour (this flour is absolutely essential – no substitutes – I used to have to go to an Asian shop for it, but you should be able to get it in all the supermarkets now).
• 50g self-raising flour
• 1 tbspn dried chilli flakes
• 0.5 tbspn coriander seeds
• 0.5 tbspn cumin seeds
• 1.5 tspn garam masala
• 1.5 tspn tandoori masala (if you can’t get this don’t worry, although I picked some up in Morrison’s)
• 1.5 tbspn lemon juice
• 1 tspn salt
• 2 med/large potatoes
• 4 med/small onions
• chopped spinach (I use frozen and use 3 “blocks” of it

Mix together the flours and spices in a large bowl, add the lemon juice then stir in water until you have a nice thick smooth batter (if you feel it is too runny later, it’s no big deal to add more flour before cooking (or between batches).  Set aside for 20 minutes.

Heat your fryer to 180 degrees (or heat vegetable oil in a deep pan until a cube of bread turns brown and crispy when dropped in it)

Finely chop the potatoes and onions (I’m lazy so I do them in the food processor whilst I’m thawing the spinach in the microwave).

Stir the vegetables into the batter until they’re all well coated (if the batter’s too runny/thick, gradually add more flour/water.

Deep fry for 5 or 6 minutes until golden.

Pakora Sauce

500ml low fat natural Greek yoghurt

200ml tomato ketchup

2 tblspn mint sauce

2 tspn chilli powder (or more/less to suit your tastes)

Salt

Mix together – taste add more chilli powder if required – chill.

Enjoy

Dwelling on a Dilemma

Over the Christmas holidays I managed to nab these gorgeous lampwork orphans from Emma at EJR Beads.

I love lampwork beads, but to be honest don’t have any experience working with them would like to make some pieces to show them off.  If you haven’t already guessed it, this is where you come in!!  Would love to hear some suggestions to showcase them.

I’m also going to have a go at chainmaille.   I did a bracelet at a class a couple of years ago and really liked doing it and have seen some lovely work lately.  I’ve treated myself to this book by Rebeca Mojica:

After the class I also bought Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry by Dylon Whyte, but I haven’t made anything from it yet, so maybe 2011 will be the year for me to discover maille.

Owing to unforeseen circumstances last night, I ended up being home alone most of the night, so managed to get cracked on a bit more with my cuff.  I also decided to ditch the teal, as it didn’t quite work with the other colours I picked (one of the few downfalls from bead shopping online).

I think this project may take some time.  You might notice I’ve started to fill in some of the holes on the brown one – this needs to be done for both sides of the bracelet.  So far I’ve done 15 of them, so only another 147 to go (and that isn’t the end of the cuff)!!.

Remember to let me know your ideas for the lampies.

Lisa xoxo

A Cuff Commences

Since quite a few of you have let me know you enjoyed the beaded bracelet progress posts, I thought I would continue doing them for my next project.  This is going to be a reversible cuff from Rachel Nelson-Smith’s book entitled Seed Bead Fusion (it’s the bottom one on the cover but I want to do the spiky one at the top too).

I’m not sure the colours are really me (I tend to like greys, pale gold and black, along with berry & jewel colours), so it remains to be seen if I’ll keep it or end up making myself a different one.  I’m changing the design slightly as it calls of over 300 crystal bicones and I really don’t want to spend that kind of money when I’m unsure of the colour combo, so I’m going to improvise.

I’ve spend about 3 hours on it so far.  At the moment it looks like this:

Thanks for looking.

Lisa xoxo

So, Sew Me

I finished my yoga bag tonight.  It’s a pretty simple tube shaped bag, with one sealed and one open end, three pockets and a thick shoulder strap.  It wasn’t difficult to make and only took about 3 hours in total (bearing in mind I am by no way an expert when it comes to sewing).  I used one of the fantastic free patterns from Amy Butler – the Nigella Yoga Bag.  Not the prettiest or fanciest thing in the world but at least it will be well used.

What doesn’t show up well in my crappy photo is the large 3-part pocket going right around the bottom half of the bag.

I really enjoyed making it and am thinking about planning a trip to Mandors in Glasgow soon, to drool over their fabrics.  I fancy trying an item of clothing next and saw a nice skirt pattern in the fabric shop, although I’d probably want to add mesh over the top of it, just because I love party skirts so much.

Really looking forward to this weekend, as going to a birthday party on Sat night, although I might be taking the car, and my first ever baby shower on  Sunday.  One of the 2 mummies-to-be won’t be there, as she had a little boy in the very very early hours of this morning – congrats C & J.  The fabulous Miss S K is hosting it and I’m going to do some of the hot food.

Next project from me will be a gorgeous cuff bracelet – check back soon for some progress reports.

Lisa xoxo

A Stitch in Time

After spending the last couple of weeks making a bracelet, my next project will tackle my desire to learn how to sew a bit more this year.  Starting with a fairly simple, yet practical, yoga mat bag.  I don’t see the point in making things that will just lie around gathering dust, so decided to make something I’ll use regularly.

I’m using this free Amy Butler pattern for the bag.  I went into town yesterday to pick some fabric.  Unfortunately, Falkirk isn’t renowned for its fabric shops (or should that be one fabric shop!) and there wasn’t a huge selection, so opted for this Clarke & Clarke one called Retro Floral:

Ideally I’d like to have the bag finished for my Wednesday night yoga class, but I’m not sure how long it will take, so I may have to wait until next week’s class to show it off!

Thanks for looking.

Lisa xoxo

A Beading Journey (Part 6)

Welcome to the 6th and final part of the journey of a bracelet.  If you haven’t seen this series before, the bracelet design is from Laura McCabe’s Embellished Beadwork, an utterly fabulous book (I want to make almost everything in it).

If you have been following the journey, you’ll know that the last time I posted I was going to have to shorten the bracelet.  I did this, but it was still too long and ended up having to shorten it another twice, the final time removing some of the fringe I had added.  Believe me, the shortening was definitely the least pleasurable part of the process.  If I do this bracelet again, I think I will leave one end without the toggle and finish it off when I get to the correct length.

Anyway, after about 13 hours (albeit a couple of them spent ripping back and refinishing) over 15 days, here is the finished article:

I have to say, I really really love it – it feels so nice and slinky on.  I wore it last night to my sister’s partner’s 40th birthday dinner with this dress:

Normally, because it’s a fine knit, it catches on everything but it was fine with the bracelet.  I’ll definitely be making another one, as whenever I sat down my Mum removed it from my wrist and declared I could make her one.

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading about this beaded journey as much as I have enjoyed documenting it.

Lisa xoxo

A Beading Journey (Part 5)

Well, it looks like this will be the penultimate part of the journey.  I’m now 10.5 hours into the bracelet and it’s almost done, although I have had to take a bit of a backward step.

This is how the beast looked at 9 hours:

And this is him at 10.5 hours.  You’ll notice the bar of the toggle is no longer attached.  That’s because when I was measuring it I reminded myself that I like to wear my bracelets quite long.  I don’t know why I did this because they drive my nuts when they’re too long and come winging off when my hands are cold.  Also, it’s quite a heavy bracelet, which would make it fall off even more.

Check back soon, as I am sure I’ll have the finished item at some point over the weekend.

For my next project I’m going to get the sewing machine out and make a bag for my yoga mat.  I saw a nice free Amy Butler pattern for one, so just need to nip into town to get some fabric for it tomorrow.  After that’s done, I’ve got a nice beaded cuff to make.  I also want to make some eyeball jewellery a la Laura McCabe (if anyone has a spare $1,600, please feel free to buy me her shark fin bracelet *drool*).  One of my beady buddies, Lesley made this gorgeous ring and she’s definitely inspired me to make something too.

TTFN

Lisa xoxo

Cute as a Bag

How cute is this little fellow?  I made him in my Cuttlebug using the Sizzix Bigz XL die I posted about a few days ago.  I had heard the Sizzix extended plates don’t fit in the Cuttlebug but that you could use 4 Cuttlebug plates and still get a pretty good result, so that’s what I opted for.  In fact, I wouldn’t have needed the extra plates for this die, as its layout allowed for the shapes to be cut from both ends.

I think the next time I do one, I’ll use paper that’s the same colour on both sides, but for some reason all the coloured paper I have at the moment was white on the other side.  It’s a bit fiddly to put together, although I reckon once I’ve done 3 or 4 it will only take a couple of minutes.  I left the embellishments pretty basic because it was just a trial, but I think the little tag is perfect for it.

It’s really dinky – a perfect size for putting jewellery in.  I’m really looking forward to doing more of these (once I get some suitable paper).  Plan to try one in card as well.

Thanks for looking.

Lisa xoxo

A Beading Journey (Part 4)

Well, the weekend’s over once again, but I was able to spend some time on my bracelet on Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

Firstly, just in case you think things seem to be going very smoothly, that isn’t entirely the case.  At about 4.5 hours into it, I’ve ended up with this huge knotty mess:

The photograph doesn’t quite capture the extent of the tangled web I managed to weave; the more I tried to untangle, the worse it got, so I ended up with no option but to cut the thread, weave in the ends and start with a new piece.

I’m now about 7 hours into the project – here’s how it looks so far.

Even though the fringe embellishment makes the diameter of the closed bracelet shorter, I am almost positive it’s still going to be far too long for me, but I can deal with that hurdle when I reach it.

Lisa xoxo

Oodles of Goodies

Even though I’ve not finished the project I’m working on right now, the beads for the next beady thing I want to attempt arrived during the week.  I’ve decided to try the  Ootheca Cuff in Rachel Nelson-Smith’s Seed Bead Fusion book (that’s the green one on the cover).

The pattern calls for quite a lot of Swarovski crystals, so as I’m on an economy drive and already have quite a few sparkly things, I thought I’d use larger seed beads instead, so hopefully this will work.

These are the beads I chose.  As the bracelet is reversible I’ve decided on chocolate brown with lime larger beads on one side and a lovely matt turquoise colour with teal larger beadson the other.  Both sides will have silver accents.

I also happened to pop over to the Sizzix site and thought this little bag die would make fantastic packaging for any jewellery presents I’m doing.  The other 2 dies just fell into my basket as well – though the pocket would make a nice tag holder and just liked the shape of the arrows.

I’ll try to get a little gift bag made up over the weekend and take a photo.

I will be back soon with an update on the bracelet.

Thanks for looking.

Lisa xoxo