IPA Photography competition winner

Won the green category with this little ladybird.

Congrats to Emma Blackmore who stole the show.

plants of various types + and some clothes pegs

Butt Hole Road

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7981651/Bladder-Lane-Bent-Street-and-Butt-Hole-Road-the-street-names-that-reached-the-end-of-the-road.html

Indonesian Rendang Curry

This was sensational, warming for a cold night:

You'll need chicken bits (it can be done with beef) - breast or thighs, whatever takes your fancy.

For the sauce you need to bung in a magimix the following:
- roughly chopped shallots x 2
- two stalks of lemon grass roughly chopped
- four cloves of garlic
- one thumb sized piece of fresh ginger
- two red chillis (or more if you like more heat)
- can of coconut milk
- 4 tablespoons of tamarind paste
- two table spoons of dark soy sauce
- 4 tablespoons of nam pla (fish sauce)
- 1 tablespoon of ground cumin
- 1 heaped tablespoon of ground coriander
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon of tumeric
- I tablespoon dark brown sugar

Whizz this all up until you have a smooth sauce.

Transfer this into a casserole or wok together with two whole star anise. Add your chicken bits then simmer with the lid off, stirring well. If you do this with beef you'll need a longer cooking time, however you want the sauce to reduce until it clings to the meat but you have some sauce left to infuse with the jasmine rice (that you serve this with). The chicken took around 30 mins to cook and the sauce to thicken.

Street, road, avenue, park, grove, mews etc

This is the start of an extremely dull project. It started to amuse the kids in the car, we have collected hundreds of different road/street/avenue nomenclature and I am now going to photograph them as a record for town planners everywhere.

Dorset - end of Autumn

Scenes at Cogden Beach, Hardy's Monument and Fleet

curry

There are some nice recipes and videos of how to... on this site http://www.anjumanand.co.uk/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5nhyKflfhg&feature=player_embedded

What are you looking at?

Some flowers

The great British High Street

I like the juxtaposition of these two shops

Flowers, France etc

autumn harvest

The UK Sound Map

This is such a brilliant initiative, well worth a visit:

http://sounds.bl.uk/uksoundmap/map.aspx

The Mani - landscapes

The Mani -sea

The Mani - Greece

Souvlaki Pork

Just back from The Mani (Greece). Souvlaki Pork is amazing: nice tender cubes of Pork Loin threaded on a skewer and marinaded in olive oil, lemon juice and lots of oregano. Barbeque and eat with chips. Perfect

KitKatt Nohr Photo Comp

Here's the link to the finalists etc, including me - of course:

http://kitcattnohrwork.com/gallery/index.php/Finalists

I won some gongs

Last night at the Kitcatt Nohr photo competition I won two prizes, best landscape photograph and the people's choice award, voted by everyone who attended the event last night. Hurrah. And massive thanks to the agency for organising a brilliant event.

http://www.kitcattnohr.com/aboutus/photocomp.php

Carrot, ginger and lentil soup

Thanks to Dawn Sillett for this one:

This should chase away the last signs of Winter

You will need:

A little oil for cooking

1 medium-sized onion, finely chopped

4 large or 7-8 small carrots, peeled and sliced

1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1-inch chunk of fresh root ginger, peeled and finely chopped

Pinch of turmeric if you have it

½ cup dried red lentils (which actually look orange to me)

1 litre good quality chicken or vegetable stock



How to make it:

Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan.

Sweat the onions over a medium heat, with the lid on, for 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the carrots and garlic, giving them a good stir to get them coated with oil.

After a minute or two, quickly stir in the ginger (and turmeric if using) and then add the stock.

Add the lentils and a grind of black pepper (don’t add salt, as it toughens pulses in cooking).

Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to ensure the lentils aren’t glueing themselves to the bottom.

When the lentils are tender, blend with a stick blender or in a mixer and check the seasoning.

Scotland