Paesan: Exmouth Market

For the past few months I've been walking through Exmouth Market to get to my internship. Over these months I've watched the former 'Dollar Grill' close down and then turn into an Italian cucina povera (peasant kitchen) called 'Paesan'. I finally had the chance to visit today and it really exceeded my expectations - the food was so fresh and the service was great.

(Sorry for the instagram photos, I forgot to bring my camera!)

We had planned to just grab something on the way to the library, but after seeing Paesan was open I managed to run in, plop myself down and ask for a menu before my boyfriend even had the chance to blink.

The menu is split into antipasti and piccolo - smaller dishes that you can share - for starters and then the mains are split into meat, fish, pasta and pizza fritta. I went for the fennel sausage pizza fritta, which is a deep fried pizza (clearly I'm watching my weight) while my boyfriend chose the clam linguini. There is one thing about me - I only choose the same meals over and over again. If its a pizzeria, I will have the margherita pizza. A burger place? A cheeseburger. I basically choose the safest options over and over again. People tend to poke fun at that but I think hey, these have served me well over the years, why change now? And whenever I do go for a pizza with toppings I'm disappointed and spend the whole meal thinking 'why on earth did I choose the artichoke/sardine/broccoli pizza?'. This pizza though has really made me rethink that.

 Look at this! It is seriously an amazing pizza. It wasn't one of this pizzas that is far too big and you think 'who can finish this?' and 15 minutes later you've shamefully shoveled the whole thing down your gullet. No, this pizza was the perfect size, with an amazing crust and really flavorsome mozzarella. I am pleased that for once I chose a pizza with toppings, the fennel sausage was really lovely. 

I sadly wasn't able to get a photo of the linguini since it was inhaled before I even had the chance to get my phone out of my bag. Instead, here are some empty clams for you to take a gander at. 

All in all Paesan serves delicious food that is fresh and generally just lovely, and I'm definitely going to be paying them a visit again!

Spinach & Chickpea Hummus

Lately I've been seeing the 'Honestly Healthy' cookbook everywhere. I mean everywhere. I would open up a magazine and there it was. People kept tweeting about it. Finally I gave in and decided to see what all the fuss was about.

I hadn't realised that this cookbook focused on an alkaline way of eating - basically, eating mainly alkaline foods (with a high pH) to aid our digestive system and match the pH in our blood. Though I wasn't really too sure about only eating alkaline food (and I definitely wasn't too sure about testing my urine, er, what?) I did like the idea of eating smaller portions and just generally eating healthier. 

The photographs are really beautiful, and I love that they are showing that eating vegetarian doesn't mean just salad, salad, salad - healthy eating can be colourful and vibrant! 

I decided to first test out the spinach and chickpea hummus recipe. It was really simple and I'm really pleased with it! Be warned, certain people (i.e. my boyfriend) were put off by its colour. While I thought it looked tasty, he thought it just looked odd. It took a lot of persuasion to get him to eat it (basically I just put some on a carrot stick and waved it in his face till he gave in) but once he did eat it he agreed it was really tasty. 

Spinach & Chickpea Hummus (from Honestly Healthy)

This recipe serves 4. 

You need: 

400 g. canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained

60 g. spinach

1 tbsp of tahini

juice of 1/2 a lemon

2 tbsp of olive oil

1 small garlic clove

125 ml of water

1. Place the chickpeas, spinach, tahini, lemon juice, and olive oil in a blender or food processor, grate in the garlic and whizz till it forms a paste. Gradually add in the water till it forms the consistency you like.

2. Thats it. Seriously, just one step. 

I did a mixture of pita bread, carrot sticks and cucumber slices to serve with it. 

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes (in other words I ran out of eggs)

Whenever I'm stressed, bored, or nervous (i.e. most of the time) I bake to time my mind off things, and today, it was due to boredom. Since I was too lazy to go buy eggs, therefore having to walk all the way to the grocery store, a whole two minute walk, I tried to find a recipe for something that didn't include eggs. This led me to Joy the Baker, one of my all time favorite blogs as well as home to the recipes that I use over and over again. I found a recipe I had seen a few months ago which looked good, the 'Simple Vegan Chocolate Cake'. Cake? Check. Chocolate? Check. No eggs? Thank you Moses I have found a recipe!

The recipe I used can be found here; Simple Vegan Chocolate Cake

I only made one alteration to her great recipe, and it had nothing to do with the actual ingredients! I don't have a bundt cake pan so instead I made them into cupcakes! Then I took inspiration from Martha Stewart and put some icing sugar on top, making a sweet but not too rich cupcake! 

It is a pretty simple recipe, and one great thing about it is you don't need to use an electric mixer. I don't know why i equate using a mixer with more work, when it actually does the work for me, but for some reason I always feel like it'll be more work. Maybe because it means if I use the mixer I'll have to carry it, and as I have the upper body strength of an overcooked noodle that means too much effort to carry the huge mixer. Anyways, All you have to do is mix the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, and baking soda), mix the wet ingredients (a cup of warm coffee, vegetable oil and vanilla extract)  then mix the two together! 

Pour it into a greased bundt cake pan or in my case, in cupcake liners and...

 

And there we go!

Enjoy x. 

Tunes Tuesday (on a Thursday)

I couldn't wait for next Tuesday to put up this song, so here it is!

Snap Dragons We're All Waiting For You

The weather in London has finally really become summer these past few weeks, but according to my iphone's weather app it looks like it'll be cooling down, so I thought it would be appropriate to put this up before the weather turns bad again. Shannon and the Clams are a great garage band hailing from San Fransisco and if you like this song, you should definitely give 'Cult Song' a try too. 

Enjoy x.

Never Mind The Scallops

I haven't decided yet what exactly I'll being doing for the Diamond Jubilee, though I'm hoping bunting and Victoria sponge cake will be involved, but this is something I would love to go to: 

God Save The Clams ! Its the result of the teamwork between Pitt Cue and Rock Lobster, and is basically my idea of heaven. Anything to do with barbecue, sea food and sundaes is pretty darn great in my books, and hopefully I can convince all my pals to go this long weekend!

x. 

Need!

Right now I have my sewing machine, cutting board, craft books and all my other little extras piled onto what I call a desk, but what is really the extension of a dining room table, which means I can't even put my legs under the 'desk'! This, which I found roaming through tumblr, would solve all my space issues! The only problem is, I rent my apartment. I wonder if my landlord would notice if I put this up....

Paper Cutting

I got the chance to spend one lovely evening at the Make Lounge in Islington with the great illustrator Poppy Chancellor and learn the art of paper cutting. Since I grew up in Switzerland I had seen paper cuttings before, though the black and white designs of cows and chickens were not at all what I saw in this class!

Examples from the Make Lounge

Just by using multicolored origami paper, a scalpel knife and a pencil, Poppy showed us how to turn simple designs into amazing art. Paper cutting has been present throughout history in Mexico, China and northern Europe, though the techniques have changed throughout countries and time.

When you first begin it is probably best to use a ready made template which isn't too complicated, which is how the class at the Make Lounge started. Placing the template on a cutting board so you won't ruin your lovely table, begin by using the scalpel and cutting out along the lines of the template. Then, once you feel like you've had enough practice and feel comfortable, you can begin to make your own designs!

It was such a good template until I made a tiny mistake..

Taking one origami sheet remember to flip it over! That way, any scruffy parts will be on the back of the final picture.  However, unlike what I did in the above photo, remember if you want writing you should flip it over! Otherwise when you turn the paper over the writing will be backwards.

There we go!

 

 

 

Just from the inside out, starting with the smallest and most delicate parts. Finally, when you flip it over, it should look like this:

For my template in the class I did a mix of the two, and here is what I got! When you're finished put some craft glue on the main corners and mount it onto some card stock, and you have a modern version of the folk art of paper cutting.

x