Author: carly macaulay

chewy chocolate chip cookies

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chewy chocolate chip cookies

ingredients: 125g butter,1cup brown sugar, 3/4cup caster sugar,1 egg, 1cup SR flour,3/4cup plain flour,1tsp baking powder,1 block of milk chocolate

method: pre heat oven to 160°C. melt butter over a gentle heat, then set aside  to cool slightly. In a mixing bowl combine the sugars and then add the butter, Mix well and add the lightly beaten egg, add the flour and baking powder mix until combined. Roughly chop the chocolate and add to the mix. Place tablespoonfuls onto a backing tray lined with baking paper allowing enough room for spreading. Bake for 12 minutes or until lightly coloured on the top. Allow to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a baking tray or eating. Cookies are most delicious eaten while still warm, or if saving for later they can be microwaved for 40 sec to regain their chewy texture.

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Slow roasted chicken with silky potatoes green beans and veloutè sauce

 

we ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other

Earnest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

 

IMG_2962Restaurant Polidor 41 rue monsieur Le prince 75006 ParisIMG_2961Polidor restaurant featured in Woody Allen’s, Midnight in Paris 2011IMG_2876

We dined here three time during our four night stay, at this wonderfully humble restruant famous for Hemingway. I ordered the same meal twice not for any other reason than to simply indulge my senses once more in the simplicity of this succulent dish, suprême de poulet veloutè de morilles,purèe. ‘superbe’

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 Slow roasted chicken with silky potatoes and green beans with veloutè sauce

Ingredients for the chicken: 4 large pieces of free-range Maryland chicken,1 litre chicken stock, 3 continental parsley stalks, 2 cloves of garlic, cracked pepper

Method: place all the chicken into a deep baking dish, they can rest on top of each other. lay the parsley over the chicken, add the garlic whole to the baking dish, lightly season with the cracked pepper and then pour in the stock. Cover tightly with foil the entire top of the baking dish to keep all the steam contained. Set the oven at 180°C and slow roast for 2 hours. Check the chicken after approximately an hour and ladle the stock over the chicken sitting out of the stock, recover with the foil and continue roasting. Meanwhile prepare the veloutè.

 

ingredients for the veloutè sauce: 100grams butter,100grams flour,1litre chicken stock

Method:In a saucepan gently melt the butter without letting it colour. Remove from the heat and add the flour all at once and stir to combine. Place the pan back on the heat and cook over a gentle heat to a lightly fawn colour. Allow to cool. Bring the stock to the boil. Add the stock to the roux (flour mix) slowly over the heat, beating in well and allow to thicken before adding the next ladle. Bring to the boil, adjust heat to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes.

ingredients for the potatoes: 6 large desiree potatoes peeled and chopped,50grams butter, 250mls cream, salt to taste

method: In a pot of boiling water add the peeled and chopped potatos, boil on a rapid heat until cooked through then strain and return to the pot, mash well until there are no lumps . In another saucepan gently heat the butter until melted and add the cream cook until warmed through then add the mix to the potatoes. With a cake spatula and over a gentle heat work the cream through the potatoes until silky smooth.

Next, boil the string beans for a few minutes, ladle the veloutè into wide bowls add a large scoop of the potato and place a piece of the chicken on top finally drain the beans lightly drizzle in olive oil and season then place a few onto the chicken. Serve.

dear girls

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“I will teach my daughter not to wear her skin like a druken apology. I will teach her ‘make a home out of your body live in yourself, do not let people turn you into a regret, do not justify  yourself. If you are a disaster it is not forever, if you are a disaster you are the most beautiful one I have ever seen. Do not deconstruct from the inside out, you belong here, you belong here, not because you are lovely, but because you are more than that”

-Azra Tabassum, Your hands are threads, your body is a canvas

and..

“_you can’t make homes out of human beings someone should have already told you that.

and if he wants to leave

then let him leave

you are terrifying

and strange and beautiful

something not everyone knows how to love.”

-Warsan Shire

sacred spaces

Religion is, as I say, something universal and something human, and something impossible to eradicate, nor would I want to eradicate it. I am a religious person, although I am not a believer.

Philip Pullman

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These pictures were taken from a few of the many breathtakingly beautiful churches around Italy.  I always love the feeling that becomes present when you first step through the doors into these places, and take the moment to really see, what it is that is surrounding you. Religious or not, believer  or non, really it doesn’t matter or is of concern. You are welcome into the divinity of these walls that have been standing for the test of time. They have heard and hold deep within the deepest of secrets, immeasurable stories and prayers to  ever be recounted. These places are sacred, not only by vertue of religious believers but by their very presence and the silence they keep on all that has ever been confided. It is here, that it is for ever memorable that I light a candle for the passing of my mum’s dearest friend, Ruth.

words from whitman..

Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.

 

You must travel it by yourself.

It is not far. It is within reach.

Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.

Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.”

 

– Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

IMG_4370 IMG_4368 IMG_4369 IMG_4372 IMG_4365IMG_4377 IMG_4359 IMG_4366Photographs taken at MISO DI RISO, BIO BISTRO, Vegetarian, Vegan, macrobiotic restruant Borgo degli 54r Firenze (FLORENCE)

 

where we layed our hats, in Florence

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Our studio apartment in S.Maria Novella, Florence can be described as no more than, à la mode, perfectly designed in layout, filling every space so cleverly that you really didn’t feel confined at all. The windows opened wide looking onto the streets below and across to neighbouring apartments in true Italian style. It was light and airy and full of chic with bountiful books and mags to read in moments between exploring this wonderfully alive city. We soon discovered a vibrant little cafe around the corner that humoured us as we practiced our limited Italian with ordering our coffee and croissants to have standing at the bar, as the locals would tell you, there’s simply no other way to do it.

Via dei Canacci, Florence, Tuscany 50123, Italy, book through Airbnb.com

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