Monday Munch: Simple Baked Eggs

I make baked eggs a lot, usually with either brown seeded bread or tortillas spread with cream cheese as the base. As I'm steering clear of both big carbs and dairy at the moment, I thought I'd give it a whack without my normal base.

This is a four ingredient recipe- spinach, asparagus, smoked salmon and a whole lotta scrambled eggs (I think I used 14 here!) I layered it all up and popped in the oven and about 30 minutes later (though I'm good at losing track of the time) had a warm and comforting meal that suits me for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Hello Friday!

Yeesh, it's been a bit of a week and I'm glad I'm near the end (though I'm working all day Saturday and Sunday). Sometimes I just need Monday to roll around and things feel fresh and new again. Apologies to anyone who might have seen my reminders to myself which were scheduled to post and never written! They've been pulled down and I will attempt to get my act together. big time.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share a couple (literally just the two) photos from a recent outing to Hyde Park with my photography class. We were playing with tripods and none of us had any fun that day. We all felt pretty restricted by what we could take and got bored of taking photos of the Serpentine after a while! But it was a good learning experience (I learned about hyperfocal focussing) and it was a chance to bond a bit more with the group.

I hope you all have lovely weekends planned!

Links

I've gone a bit busy this week and have so many photos to share but no time to resize them! Bah! So, instead, I share with you some links I've recently loved as well as the above video of my new favourite author making dinner with his three year old son. It makes me smile whenever I watch it.

These gorgeous film photographs are the sort I aspire to take. I'm definitely going to get some more film for my camera, put my DSLR down for a bit and go out to explore!

I'm looking for new and healthy recipes to try in the kitchen and if they're relatively simple that's a bonus! That can sometimes be a big ask, but I know I definitely want to try these falafel and maybe with a different green like spinach. Yum!

This quilt with Oregon state symbols made me feel a bit nostalgic for my old home-state.

I rarely cook fish myself, and then usually only fish cakes or I'll just unwrap some smoked salmon or mackerel. But this recipe for pecan tilapia looks really yummy and simple to make.

I got a bit sucked into this website about people wearing the same clothes (via Smart, Pretty and Awkward)

This amazing recipe for a personal pizza that's still healthy is top of my list to make when I'm back to eating wheat and dairy!

Can you believe all of this art is made using glitter?  (via Today is going to be awesome)

I love a good book cover and  have to admit that I definitely choose what books to read in public depending on what they look like (vain much?) so I loved this post about hypothetical book covers based on marketing for gender.

I've been wanting to try my hand at something crafty (like crochet) and so this tutorial for Granny Squares is timely! I can't wait to give it a go.

Elephant and Castle

The other week, my classmates and I went to Elephant and Castle to take some pictures. I've got to be honest- I was a bit worried about being mugged, but we all survived in tact!

I was also initially worried about the amount of time we were expected to spend taking photos there. I commute through E&C at least once a week, so I've seen it a lot in all its grungy glory. What was there to take? But, quickly, I found interesting things to capture and had a blast.

We looked at some of the photos back in class and it was interesting which of mine the group liked and which they weren't so sure about. For instance, one of my favourite ones was their least favourite. It's a shot from below of scarves and they felt there needed to be some contextual information. Still not sure I agree, but it really was good to hear others' opinions.

This has inspired me to go back and look around a bit more.

Book v Film: The Crimson Petal and The White

The other week, I suggested reading the book The Crimson Petal and the White and as I originally found out about this book through the film adaptation that the BBC did a few years ago, thought it would be appropriate to revive my Book v Film series.

As always, the opening of the film is different to the book as it just doesn't have the luxury of 800 odd pages to twist the viewer around its finger. However, the fly on the wall feeling is still aimed for, we're just introduced to Sugar much earlier than we are in the book as we follow her around a dark and stinking London.

We meet a lot of the characters quite early on and the first view of Agnes shows her as incredibly hysterical and re-enacts a scene from the book that the reader is told about, but doesn't 'witness' in the same way that other scenes in the book are witnessed.

(this isn't the scene I was talking about, but is a good example of Agnes)

 

I thought the actors all did a superb job of inhabiting their characters. Chris O'Dowd as William made me chuckle when he was trying to be stern with his servants at a time when he was still so useless and soft. Amanda Hale as Agnes was delicate, unsure and strangled by her situation. I'm always a big fan of Romola Garai, though it was a shame that Sugar wasn't given as much time to be subtle about her plans. She had to be a bit more direct here.

 

One of the biggest differences for me was the character of Dr. Curlew who, because I had originally seen the film first, I had thought of as a really evil character who used his status to abuse women. There are still tinges of that in the book, but on watching the film again I felt they really boiled down his character to just this element, when in the book we learn a bit more about his background.

 

The ever-fantastic Mark Gatiss and Shirley Henderson worked well as Henry Rackham and Emmeline Fox- though Emmeline came across quite saucy almost immediately! I was slightly dissapointed by Henry's climactic scene as I felt it was a bit over the top, but could also see why it was filmed that way.

 

So, overall a good companion watch if you enjoyed the book, but equally engaging if you'd rather just see the film.



Bridlington signage

Last week I wrote about my trip to Bridlington with work and shared some photos from my walk on the beach. I ventured into parts of the town too and loved looking at the signage. There is something about the design of a seaside town- with its weathered and salty store fronts.

London Marathon part 2

I mentioned the other day that I am currently on an evening photography course and am loving it. Other than two miserable women who don't seem to want to engage with anyone, everyone's really nice and getting feedback (whether positive or negative) is really encouraging.

I took so many photographs at the London Marathon and shared 10 as part of my homework for the course. Since I get to say what goes here, I'm going to be super indulgent and just roll a gazillion photos out for your viewing pleasure (or not- you can switch off).

I went to the marathon to try to stretch myself- I only really photograph people when I am with friends or family- so I wanted to see if I could go out and take photos of strangers. Somewhere like the London Marathon was an excellent way to ease into it as there were so many photographers around.

Things might get extra photo heavy here for a while, but hopefully that's not a bad thing? I'll

The Can't Read List

A round up of some of my current favourite authors

I’m a big reader, as anyone who reads this blog will probably have worked out by now! I love picking up a good book and tearing through it and even if I find something a bit iffy, pride myself in powering through and reading to the end.

I recently read an article about getting young children into books and the author said something that made me stop and think. He suggested that telling children it’s ok to put down a book they’re not enjoying will encourage them to pick a book they do enjoy and to persevere with reading. This makes so much sense to me, yet I rarely follow this advice.

In fact, I once sought out a book that was on The Guardian’s list of Top 10 Most Difficult Books to Finish just for the challenge (and because it’s a favourite author of mine). The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro was amazing and instead of unreadable, I found it was un-put-down-able.

It was hazy and dreamlike, confusing and often off-piste. New themes were regularly introduced, new characters, new relationships. I spent the entire book wondering why the protagonist didn’t just say ‘I have no clue what’s going on, can someone please tell me?’ instead of lying through his teeth time and time again, following people through doors that seemed to cut through the geography of the city he was in and losing all sense of time. It was a meaty, interesting, refreshingly different book and I was thrilled when I got to the end. I felt a sense of achievement, but of course wouldn’t have enjoyed the process nearly as much if I hadn’t genuinely enjoyed the book too.

I do have a few select books, some of which I have tried to read time and time again, and have just not got on with. Here are my top three:

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin- I really want to read this book. I do. But every time I pick it up, I can’t seem to get past the first scene involving the extraction of a very old pea from an old man’s ear. I don’t understand why.

The Life of Pi- When the film came out, everyone said the book was fantastic and so was the film. I’ve not seen the film (though I want to) and have started this book several times, only to put it down again.

The Picture of Dorian Grey- I bought a stunningly bound version of this book and had already seen the (what I’m guessing was very sexed up) film adaptation with Ben Barnes and Colin Firth. But then I tried to read the book and found the language too old fashioned. Everyone just flounced onto chaise longue and cried things like ‘why am I so bored?’ and I wondered the same thing. Couldn’t finish it.

Do you have any books you’ve not been able to get through? Are you scoffing at the books I couldn’t read?



Foodie Penpal Reveal

This month, I was insanely lucky to receive yet another international pen pal when I was matched up with Sanne who sent me some lovely Dutch goodies.

Can I just say that first of all, the packaging was amazing? It was so fun to open the box to all these tiny little presents that were wrapped beautifully, and it made the surprise last longer!

Now, as I write this I am kicking myself for not taking a better 'here's what's inside the packages' photo, but the only one I have is this:

I just can't do justice to how great my package was. There was a good mix between treats (oh my goodness, hello caramel filled waffles and awesomely packaged fair trade chocolate bar!) plus some treats that I like to pretend are healthy (licorice- love some panda licorice) as well as a recipe and two ingredients to make a really yummy couscous salad with almonds and apricots.

Sanne also emailed me a photo of a building that was painted almost completely blue before it was demolished because she saw my post about a painted building in Kings Cross. Isn't that sweet? Here's her photo:

I appreciated all the little small touches that made it clear that Sanne had read my answers to her email and also checked out my blog too for some extra research. This truly was a great package and I feel spoilt rotten.

Foodie Pen Pals is a great scheme run in the UK by Rocksalt. Every month, you get paired up with a pen pal to send a package too, and another pen pal to receive a package from. I’ve received a lot of great and new items over the months and have been lucky enough to have received packages from all over England and now a few European locations as well!

p.s. want to see what I sent? This time I was linked with Steph and she'll be posting about what she received here.

Photography Course

I’ve signed up for an evening photography course for the summer term at Morley College and am really relishing the new challenges it is presenting me as well as the small confidence boosts that I occasionally do something right!

I started a few weeks ago and while I was incredibly nervous before arriving (I was worried I had overestimated my skills) and quite daunted in the first few minutes of the class (everyone else had come from other courses, some quite vocational!) I found the overall experience incredibly positive and left the class on a high- in fact I still felt excited the next morning which was great. It’s been a while since I’ve had a focussed project that I feel really enthusiastic about.

In the first class, we spoke about the photo essay and went out to Lower Marsh Road behind Waterloo station to take some pictures. Having a really specific task- use 20 minutes to walk up the road and take images that gives an idea/tells a story about the location- was refreshing. I normally go out and shoot what I’m doing. I suppose I’ll often have a relatively similar aim, for instance with my recent trip to West Bay, but something felt different about this task and I felt focussed and interested and wanted to spend longer out there!

We had to pick out 6 images from the shoot and share them with the class (I'm sharing my 3 favourites here). Back came the nerves as I saw what my classmates had taken. I loved the composition of many of the shots and there were some really interesting things they had spotted and I hadn’t. But when it was my turn, the teacher had a few good things to say and there was even a murmur of respect from the group for the photo below. It was such a boost! I’m certainly not the best in the group, but to know that I’m hopefully on the right path, and working towards improving my skills as a photographer is so exciting.

We have lots of site visits and homework projects coming up over the term, so I am sure I will share some of my work here- if only because I’m too excited not to!