If you’ve never heard of “Information is Beautiful” you’re seriously missing out. David McCandless is responsible for the name, which is both a book and a website. I’m not sure which came first, but I think it’s safe to assume it was the website. While the concept of an infographic is by no means new, David takes special pride in visualizing data in both an aesthetically pleasing and insightful way.

I’ve been browsing through the book recently and I think I could probably spend the next month ingesting all of its interesting data and drooling over the beautiful designs. One particular infographic that caught my attention was the Dangers of Death. It’s a comparison of the many different ways to die and based on your chances of actually dying from it. Apparently there’s a 1 in 3 chance of dying from heart disease. That fact alone is enough to make me consider taking out life insurance.

The data gets a bit sketchy when it claims you have more of a chance of dying from an asteroid impact than you do lightning. Still, it’s good to know that I only have a 1 in 35,000,000 chance of dying from blogging because I was beginning to worry.

Last Sunday marked the end of mour most recent Vegetable Garden Competition, the Spring a Leek recipe competition. This time around our guest judge was Kerstin Rodgers, aka @msmarmitelover, who started one of Britain’s first supper clubs and currently runs the Secret Garden Club. As always, the blogger with the most creative recipe won a £200 voucher to any UK restaurant of their choice, and three runners up won a copy of Kerstin’s cookbook, Supper Club.

This time around everyone who entered really upped their game with some fantastic recipes. Being a leek lover myself I can definitely say there were many outstanding entries, but unfortunately only 4 prizes to give out. Here are the results of the competition:

 

The winner

Hari Covert – Pressed Leek Terrine with Cobnut Oil Dressing

 

Runners Up

The Fat Carrot – Welsh Eggs
Allotment2Kitchen – Caerphilly Cheese, Leek and Potato Pie
Reluctant Housedad – Leeks with scallops, black pudding and bacon butter

 

Entries

Linda Elisha’s Blog – Leek, Chicken and Gruyere Gratin
Sweet Peas, Tulsi and Tea – Spring Leek & Mint Pie
Homemade by Hannah – Smoked Fish and Leek Quiche
The Blue Sky Cook – Leekie Welsh Rarebit
Familycook – Leek and Caerphilly Filo Pie
Checky’s Kitchen – Chicken with Morels and Sherry
Mummy I Can Cook – Leek and Butter Bean Soup with Caramelised Shallots and Bacon
Pebble Soup – Leek and Caerphilly/ Cheshire Cheese Crumble
Chef Mel’s Kitchen – Chicken and Leek Pie
Miss Mamo’s World – Leek & Leftover Pie
Comfort Bites – Pan Fried Salmon and Creamy Leeks
She Cooks, She Eats – Leek and Mango Sausage Bites
Portsmouth Food Lovers – Sea Bass with Charred Leek, Clams, Blood Orange, and a Leek Puree
Anne Walsh – Quorn, Leek and Mushroom Pie
London Unattached – Leek Caponata
Eating Covent Garden – Pork steaks with leek, apple and mushroom sauce

 

Congratulations to all the winners, and many thanks to everyone who participated!

 

Football. It’s like air to some people in the UK. They live it on it. I love it myself. I’ve been playing for the past 18 years and I can’t imagine a life where I didn’t play.

Personally, I don’t really care for supporting pro teams and all that. I just don’t see the point in getting all worked up and taking pride in something that realistically has nothing to do with me. Fair play to those who do get involved in all the fuss. I can’t deny that the atmosphere of a football mach is both exhilarating and fun, and it wouldn’t be possible without the support and participation of fans.

It’s just not really my thing. I wouldn’t even know where to begin choosing a team to support. An ex once playful told me that because I was his missus I was automatically a supporter of his team. So I took a minor interest in Tottenham Hotspurs. After we broke up the team was a bit tainted for me so I tried supporting Man United because my best friend supports them. I’d be lying if I said I actually cared who won the Premier League though.

Lately I have been getting little more into the whole spectator side of football. Britain’s love for the underdog seems to be wearing off on me. Watching highlights of QPR’s recent wins against top of the league teams Liverpool and Arsenal I did feel a glimmer of pleasure. I’ve even been considering putting a bet down now that my friend has built a site where you can make free bets online. My fantasy football attempt at the beginning of the season was a complete failure. Knowing absolutely nothing about how it actually works I thought if I chose the players who most other people were picking I’d be sure to have a winning team. Surely it’d be a breeze, right? WRONG.

Anyway, here’s a funny photo I took a few years at the only UK football match I’ve ever been too. Tottenham v. Liverpool.

 

Following the success of the Taste for Tomatoes Competition, this past December I ran the Christmas Carrot Competition for LoveTheGarden.com. This time our guest judge was the talented Niamh from Eat Like a Girl. She had the tough job of choosing her favourite carrot recipe to win a £200 voucher to a UK restaurant of their choosing, plus three runners up to win a copy of her cookbook, Comfort & Spice.

Many fantastic recipes were entered, and it’d be a shame to keep them all to ourselves so I present you all with the list of entries and winners of the last vegetable garden competition of 2011!

 

Winner

Wanton Flavours – Carrot Halva

 

Runners Up

Chef Mel’s Kitchen – Carrot, Maple & Bacon Soup

Super Lucky – Carrot Meringues

Foodiecat – Carrot Pakoras with Tamarind Dipping Sauce

 

Entries

Misk Cooks – Carrot Salad Totally Unlike My Mother’s

Feeling Food – Thai Festive Peanut Slaw

The Austerity Cook – Love, Money and the Packed Lunch

Chez Foti – My Great-Granny’s Christmas Pudding

Working London Mummy – Turkey Noodle Soup with Carrot, Pepper, Chilli and Lemongrass

Pebble Soup – Carrot Pineapple Snowballs

Mark’s Veg Plot – Carrots, Cardamoms and Crackers

Fabulicious Food – Carrot and Parmesan Risotto

Two Become Four – Butternut Squash, Carrot and Sweet Potato Soup

Food Genie – Carrot and Potato Pie

Day in the life of a Busy Gal… – Carrot Mousse with Carrot Crisp Garnish

Yummy Choo Eats – Carrot & Oatmeal Cookies with Sugar Icing

Look Who’s Cooking Too – Curried Carrot and Lentil Soup

London Unattached – Christmas Pudding Carrot Cakes

Allotment2Kitchen – Chantenay Carrot and Thyme Flan

Portsmouth Food Lovers – Carrot Crush

Mummy I Can Cook – Carrot, Cardamom and Coconut Soup

Fiona Holt – Carrot Tarte Tatin

Jane’s Rambling Blog – Carrot, Sweet Potato and Coriander Soup

 

Congratulations to the winners, and thanks so much to everyone who entered!

In 9 days I’ll be going home for Christmas and I. Can. Not. Wait! I haven’t seen my friends and family back home for a year now. That’s the longest I’ve ever been away from home without at least visiting. I don’t even know what to expect. Regretfully, I haven’t done a great job of keeping in touch with a lot of friends. To be fair though, a lot of people haven’t tried to keep in touch with me either. Still, I can’t wait to see them. I just hope they haven’t forgotten about me.

Last Christmas was the best one I’ve ever had. Before that my family members hadn’t exactly been getting along with each other for a few years, and Christmases tended to be full of arguments and disappointment. I think the real low point was when my mother had given both myself and my sister a travel sized bottle of hand sanitizer as her only Christmas gift. It was bad times! We’re past that now, and everyone’s in a good place and getting along. I don’t even care about the gifts I just can’t wait to spend quality time with the fam!

I’ve already got a nice day out planned for the 2nd day I’m back. A few friends, my sister, and I are all going ice skating at Frog Pond on the Boston Common. Then we’re going out for a nice dinner somewhere. Later we’ll go and see my friends’ band play at TT The Bears. Other things I’m hoping will happen are: Going for breakfast at the Lighthouse Cafe, eating lots of my mother’s chicken cutlets, getting to see as many friends as possible, and SNOW! Last year when I was home we had a snowstorm just a few days before my flight home. It was awesome. There’s nothing better than waking up to snow. Have a look at the view from my house last year:

 

Anyway… COMPETITION TIME!!

Fly Thomas Cook are giving you the chance to win an Antler Purelite Large Suitcase! Christmas is coming and inevitably some of us will find ourselves packing luggage to visit families and friends. Nevertheless it’s hard to fit everything you may need into a small suitcase! So, they are asking British bloggers to share which items they bring with them to really capture the Christmas spirit!

To enter this competition you must:

- Share your tips and experiences on your blog
- Let your readers know that you entered this competition
- Share the URL of your entry on Fly Thomas Cook’s blog before the 19th of December 2011

A jury of travel experts will select the best tips and the winner will receive an*Antler Purelite Large Suitcase.

The competition is open to UK residents only. The deadline is 11.59pm (UK time) 19th of December 2011. More details can be found on the Fly Thomas Cook competition page. If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me or Lucie at Lucie.Oge@arena-media.co.uk.

I’ve recently launched the next competition in the Vegetable Garden Competition series. It’s the final one before the end of 2011 and fittingly  for the time of year it’s Christmas themed.The last competition, Taste for Tomatoes, was the best one since we started. Loads of people got involved and I really enjoyed chatting with everyone involved and seeing all the delicious recipes. Hopefully this one will be even better! Here are the details from the press release for anyone who wants to participate:

The online garden experts from Love the Garden are delighted to announce the fourth and final vegetable garden competition of 2011 to make sure vegetables won’t be forgotten this December: the Christmas Carrot Competition! The independent guest judge, Niamh Shields from Eat Like a Girl, will be looking for culinary creativity with carrots. The author of the best recipe will receive a £200 restaurant voucher to a UK restaurant of their choice. Three runners up will receive a copy of Niamh Shields’ cookbook Comfort & Spice.
Entering the competition is easy.

All bloggers need to do is:

•     Share a carrot recipe on their own blog;
•     Mention the competition in the post;
•     Tell LovetheGarden by emailing the URL of their entry to entries@lovethegarden.com before 21st December 2011.

The orange root vegetable is a prominent part of traditional Christmas meals, but recipes don’t have to be Christmas themed. Recipes for soups, salads, stir-fries and even cakes with this versatile vegetable are welcomed too.

LovetheGarden launched their first competition to find the best recipes for garden vegetables in February 2011, which encouraged bloggers to be creative with cabbage. The winner was Karolina with her Cabbage & Mushroom Pasties. In August, David Hall won the Potty for Potatoes competition with his Hot potato, bacon and nasturtium salad and the winner of the Taste for Tomatoes competition was Nic from Cherrapeno with her Summer Tomato Tart with Chilli Cheese Pastry. The carrot competition will be the last one for 2011, but in 2012, Lovethegarden will continue to encourage everyone in the UK to eat their five-a-day.

The deadline is 11.59pm (UK time) on 21th December 2011. For more information, please visit the vegetable garden competition page.

Last week another veggie box arrived for me at the office; this time with two special surprises. The first was a complimentary cartoon of eggs… and the second was a vegetable that I have a bit of an aesthetic obsession with, the Romanesco Cauliflower.

It’s a gorgeous, light green vegetable that grows in a natural fractal pattern. It was so lovely to look at that I almost didn’t want to eat it, but I wouldn’t dare let it go to waste. I had absolutely no idea what to do with the thing, even chopping it up felt like deciphering a puzzle. Luckily the lad came with a recipe. I’m going to be really lazy and just copy and paste it from the Abel & Cole website, but you can find the original here.

 

Roasted Cauliflower with Lemon and Paprika

 

• 1 medium-large romanesco (or any cauli, about 750-800g), trimmed
• 2 lemons
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• ½ tsp hot smoky paprika
• Sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 220°C/Gas 7. Cut the cauliflower into medium florets and rinse, leaving some of the water clinging to the florets.
2. Put them in a large roasting tray, squeeze over the juice from one of the lemons, trickle over the olive oil, add the paprika and some salt and pepper and toss the whole lot together.
3. Cut the remaining lemon into 6 segments and scatter these in the tray. Roast for 25-30 mins, turning once, until the florets are slightly caramelised at the edges.
4. Squeeze the juice from the roasted lemon segments over the roasted cauliflower and serve at once, scattered with a little flaky sea salt.

 

I really enjoyed the taste of the cauliflower (which reminded me a lot of my favourite veg, broccoli), but I can’t say I was a big fan of the lemon/paprika mixture. Some bites were nice, but others had me making the lemon face. I’m not conscious of ever having had paprika before so I couldn’t distinguish whether it was that or the lemon that was way too intense, but either way it wasn’t pleasant. That’s just my opinion though, and one to be taken with a grain of salt. My palate ranges from chocolate to bland. My friend really liked the dish, so I’m sure other people will too.

The same night I also made…. GRASSHOPPER PIE!

It’s taken me a week to eat the whole thing. I was hoping my mates would help me tackle the monster, but they only managed 3 slices between them. Hmm… that could be saying something. Anyway, in lieu of the actual recipe, here is an artsy fartsy photo of my delicious pie ;-)

Last week I (re)signed up for an Abel & Cole veggie box delivery. They’re a London based company that delivery boxes of seasonal organic fruit and veg (plus other grocery items if you chose) to your door. You don’t get to chose what goes in your box, but you can specify fruit & veg that you love, like, or dislike so that you don’t receive something you won’t use. I signed up around this time last year, but cancelled my order after a week because I didn’t end up using a lot of the veg I received and I couldn’t really afford cost for food I wasn’t going to eat. However, I’ve been trying to eat healthier recently so I thought I’d give it another go.

Last Wednesday when I came into work I spied a familiar looking box with my name on it sat in reception. I grabbed the box and hurried upstairs to get a peak at what was inside. My 8 year old self would be horrified to hear how excited I was about a box a vegetables. It was almost like Christmas… the not knowing what you’re getting, the smile on my face as I walked proudly down the hall to my desk, everyone around me looking over my shoulders to see what was inside as I “unboxed” the veg… Or not really… But still I did enjoy the surprise.

My box contained broccoli, fennel, potatoes, flat beans, leeks, and purple carrots. Which is a pretty good turn out. Considering how fussy I am, I’ll eat everything in the box with the exception of fennel, which I didn’t find out till I tried it. I’d never had fennel before so my manager made me fennel and orange salad. I’m not a fan of anything that tastes like aniseed/black liquorice, but for anyone who is this is definitely a recipe to try. So here you go…

 

Fennel and Orange Salad

 

Thinly slice up some fennel. Thinly slice up some orange. Add some olive oil. Add some salt & pepper.

Fanny’s your aunt.

 

This past month I’ve had the pleasure of running the third in a series of vegetable garden competitions for LovetheGarden.com. I’ve run all three of them actually, but this one was special because for the first time we had a guest judge! Food blogger and writer James Ramsden from JamesRamsden.com kindly agreed to choose his favourite tomato recipes in our Taste for Tomatoes competition.

As in the other competitions, the best overall recipe would receive a £200 voucher to any UK restaurant of their choice. However, this time we also had signed copies of James’ new book Small Adventures in Cooking to give away to three runners up.

The quality and caliber of the entries in this competition were excellent. James’ comments for the winners is a testament to the creativity of the recipes entered (see the Love the Garden blog). I got some really positive feedback from everyone involved and I can honestly say that I had such a great time running this competition. I met so many lovely people and have now got a massive collection of delicious recipes to try out, which is why I’ve decided to share them all here. Below you’ll find all the recipes which were entered into the competition. Enjoy!

 

Winner

Cherrapeno – Summer Tomato Tart with Chilli Cheese Pastry

 

Runners Up

Belleau Kitchens – Roasted Tomato, Chili and Coconut Soup

London Unattached – Hake with smoked garlic, chili and fresh tomato sauce

Me, My Food and I – Roasted Tomato Caprese Bruschetta

 

Entries

Pebble Soup – Green Tomato Chutney with Ginger

David Hall – Tomato and Sweet Onion Tarte Tatin

Super Lucky – Gazpacho

Comfort Bites – Vine Tomatoes with British Buffalo Mozzarella and Lemon & Basil Dressing

Utterly Scrummy – Quick and Easy Tomato Relish

Marks Veg Plot – Green Tomato sauce with Pesto

Competition Grapevine – Pizza my way

Northern Eco – Hot salsa

Jane’s Rambling Blog – Gardener’s Delight

Love Food – Simple Tomato Chicken and Herb Casserole

Mummy Musings – Tomato & Chilli Chutney

Eating Covent Garden – Tomato curry

Chef Mel’s Kitchen – Feta Filled Cherry Tomatoes

Senses in the Kitchen – The Perfect Meal

Slovenly Jimmy – Easy Tomato and Cheese Souffle

Garden, Tea, Cakes and Me – Vegetable Cobbler

Piper and Daisy – Tuscan Bruschetta

Freddie’s Fingers – The Bloodiest Mary

Look Who’s Cooking Too – ‘Go To’ Tomato Sauce and Chicken Tikka Pizza

Cooking Etc. – Home-grown tomatoes and tuna salad

Yummy Choo Eats – Sweet Tomato Tarte Tatin

A few weekends ago I took a trip down to the Real Food Market at Southbank Centre. It was a gorgeous, sunny day and uncharacteristically, but pleasantly warm for October. Myself and a friend (see him getting interviewed for a German TV programme below) went down to peruse the stalls.

The first one we came upon was selling lots of traditional middle eastern foods and treats in these lovely wooden bowls (bottom middle and right photos). I really wanted to buy some of their hummus, which looked very yummy, but didn’t think I’d finish at home it before it went off so I settled for a chicken shwarama. I wouldn’t recommend it though. Admittedly, my tastes are very bland, but even this was too bland for me. Plus the chicken was very fatty as well.

One stall was selling these incredible looking baked goods (top left photo). I couldn’t resist buying a red velvet whoopie pie and a white chocolate and raspberry brownie. The whoopie pie last about 30 secs. The brownie was so rich it took a couple of days of sporadic munching before it was finished. Despite the photo, I didn’t get a macaroon. Although thinking about it, I probably should have. I’ve never actually tried one, but they looked so pretty sitting there all vibrant and lined up that I thought it’d make a great picture. I’ll have to go back soon and get one to try.

I also ended up buying a nice wholegrain loaf and some strawberry extra jam from two other stalls. Everything was delicious (when I got it home and ate it of course). There were a few more stalls which I didn’t purchase from, but would definitely be worth checking out. As far as I can remember, you can find cheese, beer, oils, curds, burgers, and a few more other things that are escaping my memory at the moment. It’s definitely worth going down there for a visit. The atmosphere was great and there was quite a bit of choice for a relatively small market. I’ll have to take a trip down there when I next have some free time and get some more bread, yummmm :)