food styling – Page 3 – Bea's cookbook

Lemon TART

Posted on 08/01/201607/25/2018 by Bea

“What can one person do?” whizzed pass me, displayed on the side of the local bus, next to the picture of smiling Nelson Mandela. I have heard these words many times before but they suddenly seemed more powerful now than ever before.

I have been struggling to write anything lately.A craftsmanship of turning thoughts into words is something I always admired. It has never really been a skill I’ve owned but it became even harder to tell stories about food while what is happening around the world makes me so sad.

How can you talk about baking while at the same time you dread to put the morning news on and while the recent events make you feel so terribly helpless?

So what can one person do when life gives you more and more lemons and the world is turning into a sour place?

Make a lemon tart.And pass a slice to everyone around you. One person, in fact, can’t fix the world overnight, but what one person can do is to spread more kindness and maybe change another person’s life.And who knows, maybe that person will spread the love even further and changes someone else’s life too. Good deeds are contagious you know and I believe (although it might seem a little naive) we’ll wake up in a better place one day, filled with tolerance, a place where things like your gender, colour of your skin, what language you speak, who you love and who you are won’t matter.Because they simply DON’T.This is the world I’m going to fight for.

Let’s be the change that we want to see in the world. That’s what we all can do.

LEMON TART

Ingredients for the pastry:

250 g plain flour
125 g butter, cold
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons icing sugar
vanilla beans, removed from 1 vanilla pot (optional)
1-2 tablespoons of cold water (or more necessary)

Sift the flour, add the butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips until the dough will resemble coarse crumbles. Add the egg yolk, sugar, vanilla beans, water and quickly knead. If it feels too dry, add some more water, if it’s too sticky, add a little bit more flour. Form the dough into a ball, flatten into a disc using palm of your hand (it will roll out easier), wrap in cling film and cool in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 160C

Removing the dough from the fridge roll it out and line a 24 cm round tray. Prick the pastry with the fork and place in the fridge for additional 30 minutes. After that time take it out the fridge, place baking paper on the top of the pastry followed by baking beans to keep it in place while in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes. Then remove the paper and bake an additional 15 minutes until lightly browned.

Ingredients for the lemon filling:

5 eggs
100g caster sugar
1-2 tablespoons honey (optional)
150 ml double cream
100 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
grated zest of 2 lemons

Place all the ingredients in a medium bowl and mix well until smooth.

Transfer the lemon filling onto the pastry. Bake 30-35 minutes until the top of the tart has set. Leave to cool, serve at room temperature or chilled.

Serve with icing sugar, fruit or ice cream or even better – all three 🙂

Spread the love,

Bea
xxx

Bea’s favourite pasta with tons of green pesto!

Posted on 06/06/201602/06/2018 by Bea

The past few weeks were like a whirlwind in my usually calm life.

Me and my husband went to London for two amazing events,Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year and UK Blog awards. Both the same week (!). We met fantastic people, made great memories, drank too much prosecco and danced on Trafalgar Square. OK. Only I danced as Darek watched my crazy moves and couldn’t stop laughing! No. it wasn’t my typical shy bop with moving from one leg to another, slowly swinging my arms on the sides. It was the kind of wild dance I do in the kitchen when no one is looking! Probably even wilder than I thought, because the police(!!!) went up to my husband asking him who I was!!! Can you really get arrested for expressing your happiness in public? Let’s just hope there is no video floating around the internet, otherwise I’ll have to leave the country!

But don’t you just love London? Trafalgar Square. Tuesday night. DJ and a dancing group of happy people. (Pretty obvious who the dancing queen was!) This city has a vibe!

It was brilliant and I’m over the moon that my photograph of Polish pierogi came second in Food Bloggers Category in Pin Lady Food Photographer of the Year and that Bea’s cookbook was Highly Commended at the UK BLOG AWARDS.

…..However the hangover wasn’t so exciting at all!!!…..

Talking about whirlwind…there is something else too….we’ve had a puppy!!!

She is the sweetest and most charming thing in the whole world…..that turns into tornado within a split second.
She loves gardening. I dig the plants in, she digs them out and madly wags her tail like it it’s the best game ever.
She loves to play hide and seek. She hides socks everywhere abound the house (I found a few in the garden too!) and you have to look for them, which might not be so funny if you are in a rush and you end up leaving the house wearing not matching pair.
Ohhh and she is really into food too! Literally. Her mouth lands in the food, the second you leave the plate unattended. Not to mention that she drank all the beer from the slug traps!!! (Have you ever heard of those traps? Us neither! But we trying every internet hack to get rid of them before they eat the whole garden! Any tips welcome!)

And really, she makes us roll on the floor with laugher and I just love the way she expresses her happiness with the whole body. (Just like me when I was dancing on Trafalgar Square!)

Right, let’s talk about food a little bit. It’s a food blog at the end of the day, not a blog about cute dogs nor about my dancing skills 😉

So here is my favourite comfort food recipe. Pasta with tons of green pesto! Hell yeah! I’m totally addicted to it!

When it comes to pesto I am a masochist. I get out the sharpest knife and chop…. Chop…. Chop. …Chop…. It’s like a therapy. Plus it’s much cheaper J Of course you can use food processor too. No judgment! I use it from time to time too 😉

I’ve tried all different ingredients in this dish, whatever I had in the fridge but I always go back to those few, simple ones I love here the most: courgettes, olives, macadamia and pine nuts and super juicy yellow tomatoes. It tastes A M A Z I N G !

RECIPE:

Serves 4 big portions:

For basil pesto:

1 large bunch of basil
1 clove of garlic
40g pine nuts
30g Parmesan, finely grated
freshly ground black pepper
a small pinch of freshly grounded sea salt or any of your favourite salt
50-60ml of good quality extra virgin olive oil

Chop basil and pine nuts finely and place them in a medium bowl along with parmesan. Bash the garlic with the wide, blunt part of the knife and then chop it finely and add to the rest of the ingredients. Add black pepper, salt and olive oil. Mix with a spoon.

When I use a food processor I prefer the texture of the pesto much more when I place the basil, garlic, pine nuts and grated Parmesan in a bowl first. Whizz the ingredients until fine and then I add the rest of the ingredients : grated Parmesan, salt, pepper and olive oil and mix them all together with a spoon.

For the dish:

350g fresh pasta
4 courgettes
200g green olives
200g yellow tomatoes
100g macadamia nuts
a handful or two of pine nuts
good quality olive oil
a handful of grated parmesan
fresh basil leaves

Boil the pasta in slightly salted water with a spoonful of olive oil. Drain, pour some cold water through it and place back in the pan. Add the pesto and mix it in well so it covers the whole pasta.

Pour some oil in a pan, heat it up and add sliced courgettes, cook until soft.( I like mine with a little bit of crunch). Add them to the pasta and heat it up slightly. Take it off the heat again and add the rest of the ingredient: olives, halved tomatoes, macadamia and pine nuts. Sprinkle with some grated Parmesan and fresh basil leaves and ENJOY!!!

Bea xxx

Cotswolds inspired APPLE TART

Posted on 04/26/201602/15/2018 by Bea

Few weeks back I posted a photo of these apple tarts on my Instagram. It made everyone hungry…(So I assume :)) Since then, few people messaged me for the recipe and I thought I should share it with the world. So here it is!

I bake this tart often because in the Lubases house we love the combination of buttery pastry and melting in the mouth apple filling spiced with our favourite vanilla. It’s our comfort food whenever we want to spoil ourselves a little.

The recipe came to life after one of our visits to the Cotswolds, one of my favourite places on the planet. Its local food always inspire me to prepare something….homely…cosy…and comforting. This time it also had to be sweet 🙂

RECIPE:

Pastry:

300 g plain flour
210 g butter, cold
2 tablespoons icing sugar
4-6 tablespoons of cold water
Sift the flour into a medium bowl, add the rest of ingredients, rub them together with your fingers and then knead to create a smooth pastry. Add some cold water and if the mixture feels too crumbly add a little bit more. Divide the pastry into two parts, one slightly bigger than the other (or 4 parts if you make two smaller tarts, again 2 parts slightly bigger),flatten the pastry into discs(it will roll better),wrap with cling film and put in the fridge for 30min -1 hour.

Apple filling:

1.2 kg of apples, firm and hard
juice of 1/2 lemon
sugar to taste – around 6 tablespoons
2 teaspoons vanilla paste or seeds of 1 vanilla pod (you can add more)

Squeeze the lemon juice and pour it into a larger container. Peel the apples,remove seeds, chop and mix with lemon juice. Add sugar and vanilla seeds and cook for around 15 minutes until soft. Let it cool down.

Also:

1 egg beaten for brushing

Method

Take the pastry out the fridge. Roll out the bigger part first(it’s the bottom of your pie) and line one 25cm tin or two smaller tins. Prick the pastry with a fork and fill it with apple pieces.
Now roll out a smaller part, cut into stripes(thick or thin) and arrange them on the top.

Coat with beaten egg. You can also sprinkle it with coarse brown sugar.

Bake at 190 degrees C for about 45 – 50 minutes. Remove, let it cool.

I think I must’ve said it million times before…the world takes my breath away. I watch it every day and I cannot feel any different but be grateful to be alive. I haven’t been everywhere (it’s on my list though!) but there are places out there that I LOVE to go back to. Places I want to discover deeper. Places that make my heart beat faster. The Cotswolds is undoubtedly one of them.

It hasn’t been called chocolate box region of England without a reason. Every village is filled with its own unique flavour, it surprises, inspires and leaves you craving for more.

It has everything I love. Calmness, serenity, warmth, relaxed atmosphere and the views so picturesque that you want to scream.

It’s so friendly and welcoming that it instantly makes you feel at home.

Not to mention how incredibly tasty it is! With all the amazing local products even the simplest dish seems to be an unforgettable experience.
I fall in love more and more with this place every time I visit it…..