Gazpacho at Wentworth Children's Centre

Everyone loves a soup during the winter months to get all ones nutrients and to keep warm. Gazpacho is a great way to enjoy soup in the summer and stay hydrated, refreshed and get much of ones five a day. Gazpacho is typically a Spanish dish with a recipe that will vary and depend on whom you ask and how their parents or grandparents made it. The following is a simple Gazpacho recipe that is simple and fun to make with children and suited to their taste buds.

GAZPACHO RECIPE
Ingredients
1 kilo red ripe tomato chopped
1 green pepper deseeded and chopped
1 red pepper deseeded and chopped
1 large cucumber deseeded and chopped
1/2 a small white onion chopped
1 garlic clove chopped
250 ml tomato juice
100ml extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 chunk or two slices of stale (not moldy) bread
salt and freshly milled black pepper

Method

1. Cover and soak the bread with the tomato juice and leave while preparing the other ingredients.
2. Combine the tomato, green and red pepper, cucumber, garlic and toss in the olive oil.
3. Remove the bread from the tomato juice and squeeze the excess juice from the bread and add the bread to the prepared vegetables.
4. Blend everything together in a food processor or with a hand blender until smooth with no chunks.
5. Now stir in the olive oil, cider vinegar and salt and pepper to taste.
6. Chill for at least two hours and serve as is or with garnishes such as finely diced cucumber, herbs, ham, eggs, spring onions, peppers or anything you would like.

Salmon Pasta and Salad at Wentworth Children's Centre

Here are the salmon and brocolli pasta and accompanying beetroot salad that we made today at the Healthy Eating Course held at Wentworth Children's Centre. My workshops focus on healthy recipes that are easy to prepare and cost-effective. The workshops allow for the parents and children to prepare ingredients and cook together and try new things. We cook our meals and then sit down together to enjoy the fruits of everyone's labour.

SALMON PASTA
Ingredients
400g pasta (penne or fusili or tagliatelle)
250g skinless and boneless salmon fillets
250ml yoghurt
150 ml vegetable stock
150g broccoli - chopped very finely
25g butter
25g parmesan (optional)
1 chili finely chopped
1 lemon
bay leaf
Mixed herbs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

1. First poach the salmon. In a medium saucepan, add the vegetable stock, the juice of half a lemon, bay leaf, salt, pepper and heat to medium high. Add the salmon with the skin side next to the pan. Cover, reduce the heat and cook for 5 minutes or until cooked through. Once cooked remove from pan, cover and allow to cook. Keep the poaching liquid. Break the salmon up in to smaller flakes and remove any bones that may still be in the filets.
2. Prepare the water for the pasta according to the instructions and be sure to add salt to the water. Set a timer and cook the pasta until al dente, strain and reserve.
3. Melt the butter in the pan with the poaching liquid, add the chili to the poached water and stir over medium heat for one minute.
4. Then add the brocolli, cover with a lid and cook on medium heat for three to five minutes.
5. Next add the yoghurt to the mixture and stir well until everything is combined well.
6. Add the parmesan to the mixture and combine.
7. Add the mixture and the flaked salmon to the pasta, add salt and pepper then stir and thoroughly combine.
8. Garnish with fresh parsley (or any fresh herb) and serve.

SALAD
Ingredients
Rocket
Beetroot
Cucumber
Radish
Tomato
1 tbsp Olive oil
fresh cracked pepper and a pinch of salt

Method

1. Finely chop all the ingredients with the exception of the rocket and place in a bowl.
2. Toss together with the olive oil, salt and pepper.
3. Gently stir and fold the rocket into the vegetables.

Still Life with Grapes

This is mixed-media polymer clay painting comprised of photographs and patterns that I have made onto a canvas. The hand is a ceramic sculpture I made millions of years ago in New Orleans. The candelabra is one that I found outside Ebenzer Street thousands of years ago. I was simply playing with symbols of time.

Apple Brandy

I had a glut of Granny Smith apples and found myself all out of jars. This rarely happens so I seized the opportunity to turn the remaining apples into apple brandy. I used the same recipe that I use for my quince brandy which is:

6-8 Granny Smith apples - cored, quartered and cut into large chunks
75 cl of decent brandy
50g demarara sugar
1/2 tsp pink peppercorns
4 cardamom pods

In a steralised kilner jar, I layer the spices, apples and sugar and then fill the jar with the brandy. Once a week for the next monthI will shake and flip the jar to ensure all the spices and sugar are being mixed throughout. I usually leave for at least three months before straining the brandy through muslin into sterilised bottles. I find it impossible to simply discard the strained fruit and I will use it to make either mincemeat, ice cream or a boozy sauce of some sort.
 

Student Thank You Card

I love working with people of all ages doing arts, crafts and food workshops. I received this thank you card from a young girl who I have worked with several times before when she has attended workshops with her twin sister and their grandmother. Today we made mobiles and talked about art, crafts and musicals. I was really touched to receive this card at the end of the session and it hangs up and inspires me each and every day.

Juicy Juicing

Cheers!

I do love making vegetable juice and beetroot is a mandatory addition to any juice I make. I do try to have a citrus-based juice in winter time to really boost my immune system. This juice and the patterns I also made from photographs of the beetroot, pink grapefruit, lemon, orange and lime. The sweetness of the beetroot balances the sharpness of the citrus fruits resulting in a tangy, refreshing juice.

Beetroot, p. grapefruit, orange, lemon & lime

Mosaic - Henry Maynard Primary School

110 x 110 cm paper mosaic and acrylic paint on mdf

Here is the completed mosaic made over a four week period at Henry Maynard Primary School in Walthamstow London. Henry Maynard is a wonderful school where everyone from the children, staff and students are enthusiastic, kind, caring and proud of their lovely school. I facilitated a family learning course with eight children and their mothers. The children and parents came up with the theme of a ship, which is the schools emblem, coming out of a book and different items which symbolise what they love about their school such as music, reading, maths, friendship, sport and arts. The hand border are the mosaic hands that they all made from their own hands on the first day and symbolise the teamwork that they all showed throughout the project. I am so proud of everyone on the course and at the school and so thankful to everyone, especially Lauren and Alison Pearson. Please do check out my other mosaic projects at Wentworth Children's Centre and Comet Children's Centre.

Week 1 - making hand mosaic

Week 1 - cutting paper to size

Week 2 - making templates for mosaic pieces

Week 2 - painting the mdf board

Week 3 - filling in and laying out mosaic elements into place

Week 4 - gluing down the mosaic elements onto the board.

Still Life with Egg

Here is a still life comprised of my patterns melded into a photograph that I took.

Patterns of 2016 - Week 9

Still Life with Pasta

Eggs is Eggs

Here is a still life print that I created from some of my prints and patterns as well as some photographs of mine which all together make up a collaged scene of a Still Life with Pasta. more patterns and prints that I made in week 9 of 2016 which are comprised of polymer clay cane segments which have been made and designed by myself. I then scan them and create a pattern and prints from the cane slices.

Find more images on Smy Goodness Instagram.

Banana & Apricot Compote Muffins

Banana & apricot compote muffin ingredients

The bananas above needed using up so I whipped together another recipe for muffins where the sugar was replaced with a Smy Goodness compote, in this case Smy Goodness apricots compote. The compote adds moistness and flavour to the muffins without them being overly sweet.

Banana  & Apricot Compote Muffins Recipe

Ingredients: 

• 100g organic spelt flour
• 100g organic plain flour  
• 100g organic butter
• 275ml apricot compote (or any flavour jam/compote) 
• 2 medium ripe bananas
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp organic vanilla

Instructions  : 

1. preheat the oven  to 210°C and lightly grease a muffin tray.
2. Mix and blend the butter, compote, bananas, egg and vanilla. 
3. Sift and flours and baking powder together.
4. Fold the sifted flour and baking powder into the blended wet ingredients a bit at a time until completely blended together.
5. Add a heaped tablespoon of the mixture into cases or muffin tray and then go back and add a bit of the mixture to each muffin case or tray until they are as equal as possible. The recipe will make 12-14 muffins. 

Sifted spelt and plain flour and baking powder

Banana, butter, apricot compote, vanilla and egg

Combined wet ingredients

Mixture ready for muffin cases