Roasted cauliflower soup ...

I've just made a really moreish cauliflower soup.

We've got swim club tonight, which finishes late and, as there's school tomorrow, I need to have some supper that's going to be ready to serve up as soon as we get home. So the grand plan is to leave this in my Crock Pot with the setting on warm so that it's ready to go the moment we step through the door.

Mr B. should be home before us, but, as this soup's got cheese in, I'm not sure his technical skills would be up to reheating it. If we leave him in charge we're likely to find ourselves peering into a pot with a charcoal encrusted bottom and that awful smell of burnt food hanging in the air as he does his funny little tribal dance under the smoke alarm in a bid to disperse the fumes before it dials for the fire brigade.

Oh, no! We've been there too many times before. Mr B is the one person I know who really can't boil water, so we'll leave everything safely in the Crock Pot, and issue Mr B with an injunction prohibiting him from interfering with it in any way whatsoever.

Now, what makes this soup of yours so special, Bonny? I hear you ask your computer screen as you point a doubting finger at my mugshot and suspect me of hyperbole.

Well there are two stealth weapons that help make this the very best cauliflower soup in town:

1. Roasted cauliflower: I roast the cauliflower, which bigs up its flavour by a factor of about a thousand.
2. Le Roulé: I melt 150 g of French Roulé cheese into the pot before I bring it to the table, which bigs up the creamy, unctuous deliciousness by a factor of about another thousand (all scientifically-calibrated and totally conservative estimates, of course - ahem!).

Now I can't pretend that this is going to assist as part of your controlled weight loss plan, but come on peeps it's February! You can hide away all those adorable love-handles under layers of strategically draped wool for at least another couple of months.

So, now that that's all settled, here's what we're going to need for this wonderful soup of mine:

1 medium sized cauliflower, washed and cut into florets
1000 ml of good vegetable stock
1 medium sized onion, peeled and finely chopped
3 toes of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2 medium sized potatoes, peeled and finely chopped
2 bay leaves
150g Le Roulé soft cheese
200 ml double cream - I use the Elmlea low fat cream in a token effort to regain a little ground in the calorie war that I'm so spectacularly losing at the moment.

And here's what to do:

Place your washed cauliflower florets in a baking tin and toss them with some olive oil. Roast them in an oven pre-heated to 190º C/ 375º F for 20 to 25 minutes, tossing them from time to time so that they don't brown.

Meanwhile sweat your onion, garlic and potatoes in a saucepan with a good glug of olive oil until they are all soft.

Add the roasted cauliflower florets and mix everything well before adding the vegetable stock.

Bring the mixture to a gentle boil and let it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse and for everything to cook through.

Remove from the heat. Fish out the bay leaves and discard them. Then liquidise with a stick blender.

Add the cream and the cheese over the gentlest of heats. Stir in. The cheese melts easily into the soup to create a wonderful velvety delight, and the parsley in which it was rolled disperses through the liquid to make it look as though you're a wizard with the mandolin.

Serve with crusty bread, good company and a nice glass of vino.

All the best for now,


Bonny x

Fisherman's rib pom pom scarf ...

One of stitches that I have fallen in love with is Fisherman's Rib. It creates a wonderfully squidgy textile that's really comfortable to wear. It's pretty quick to knit up too, making it perfect for us impatient types who like to see results pronto!

I'm also in love with Debbie Bliss's Cashmerino Aran wool. The wonderful palette of colours and the exquisite softness of the yarn make me really happy. Yes, you've caught me out: I'm a really simple soul at heart!

The colours I chose for this project were: cream (colour code 300101); and silver (colour code 300202). Right now I'm thinking that I'd like my whole house painted in that silver colour. It's not really silver, as such, it's more of a pale duck egg blue-meets-grey. And it's spot-on gorgeous in my book.

I used 2 balls of the cream (180 m in total) and 1 ball of the blue (90 m) and knit the scarf using 5 mm needles. My scarf wasn't desperately long. It measured 120 cm from tip to tip (not including the pom pom at either end), so if you think you'd like a longer one it might be worth buying an extra ball of wool in your main colour so that you don't have to cut short your ambitions.

If you'd like to make it here's my pattern:

Cast on 8 stitches using the long tail cast-on method, which will work better with the stretchiness of the rib. 

Row 1: knit. (8 stitches on needles)

Row 2: Knit 1 (K1)  [K1, K1 into the loop below the stitch - see photo below to get the general idea of how it's done], this part between the square brackets will form the Fisherman's Rib and is referred to hereafter as Rib. Carry on in rib until last stitch: K1. (8 stitches on needles)

Row 3: K1, Rib, K1 (8 stitches)

Row 4:  K1, Rib, K1( 8 stitches)

Row 5: K1, Make 1 (M1) by knitting an extra stitch into the bar between the first and second stitch (see photo below), Rib, K1 (9 stitches)

Knit into the bridge to make a stitch, and knit into the space below for the second stitch of the rib

Row 6: K1, M1, Rib, Knit 2 (10 stitches)

Row 7: K2, Rib, K2 (10 stitches)

Row 8: K2, Rib, K2 (10 stitches)

Row 9: K1, M1, K1, Rib, K2 (11 stitches)

Row 10: K1, M1, K1, Rib, K3 (12 stitches)

Row 11: K1, Rib, K3 (12 stitches)

Row 12: K1, Rib, K1 (12 stitches)

Row 13: K1, M1, Rib, K1 (13 stitches)

Row 14: K1, M1, Rib, K2 (14 stitches)

Row 15: K2, Rib, K2 (14 stitches)

Row 16: K2 Rib, K2 (14 stitches)

Row 17: K1, M1, K1, Rib, K2 (15 stitches)

Row 18: K1, M1, K1, Rib, K3 (16 stitches)

Row 19: K1, Rib, K3 (16 stitches)

Row 20: K1, Rib, K1 (16 stitches)

Row 21: K1, M1, Rib, K1 (17 stitches)

Row 22: K1, M1, Rib, K2 (18 stitches)

Row 23: K2, Rib, K2 (18 stitches)

Row 24: K2, Rib, K2 (18 stitches)

Row 25: K1, M1, K1, Rib, K2 (19 stitches)

Row 26: K1, M1, K1, Rib, K3 (20 stitches)

Row 27: K1, Rib, K3 (20 stitches)

Row 28: K1, Rib, K1 (20 stitches)

Row 29: K1, M1, Rib, K1 (21 stitches)

Row 30: K1, M1, Rib, K2 (22 stitches)

Row 31: K2, Rib, K2 (22 stitches)

Row 32: K2, Rib, K2 (22 stitches)

Row 33: K1, M1, K1, Rib, K2 (23 stitches)

Row 34: K1, M1, K1, Rib, K3 (24 stitches)

Row 35: K1, Rib, K3 (24 stitches)

Row 36: K1, Rib, K1 (24 stitches)

Row 37: K1, M1, Rib, K1 (25 stitches)

Row 38: K1, M1, Rib, K2 (26 stitches)

Row 39: K2, Rib, K2 (26 stitches)

This shapes the first V shape that will end in a pom pom on the finished scarf. 

Carry on working each row: K2, Rib, K2 until your scarf is as long as you'd like it to be. 

And then start shaping the final V shape at the other end, which will also finish in a pom pom. 

Row 1: K1, K2 together (K2 tog), Rib, K2 tog, K1 (24 stitches)

Rows: 2, 3 and 4: K1, Rib, K1 (24 stitches)

Row 5: As row 1 (22 stitches)

Rows 6, 7 and 8: K1, Rib, K1  (22 stitches)

Row 9: As row 1  (20 stitches)

Rows, 10, 11 and 12: K1, Rib, K1 (20 stitches)

Row 13: As row 1 (18 stitches)

Rows 14, 15 and 16: K1, Rib, K1 (18 stitches)

Row 17: As row 1 (16 stitches)

Rows 18, 19 and 20: K1, Rib, K1 (16 stitches)

Row 21: As row 1 (14 stitches)

Rows 22, 23 and 24: K1, Rib, K1 (14 stitches)

Row 25: As row 1 (12 stitches)

Rows 26, 27 and 28: K1, Rib, K1 (12 stitches)

Row 29: As row 1 (10 stitches)

Rows 30, 31 and 32: K1, Rib, K1 (10 stitches)

Row 33: As row 1 (8 stitches)

Rows 34, 35 and 36: K1, Rib, K1 (8 stitches)

Cast off. 

Make pom poms.

I make pom poms with two pieces of cut-out cardboard like this: 

I cut out these donut shapes using a roll of Sellotape for drawing the outer circumference with a small, inverted sherry glass in the centre to draw the cut-out. They measure about 10 cm across the outer diameter with a 5 cm diameter cut-out.

Then I put the two cardboard donuts together and wrapped them with lengths of my lovely contrasting yarn.

Until it looks like a yarn-wrapped donut.

Now for the tricky bit: you have to snip all the way around your donut, pushing the tips of your scissors between two pieces of cardboard. Then tie all the pieces together by slipping a piece of wool (it's a good idea to use your main colour wool here so that it makes it easier to sew onto your scarf when you've finished) between the two cardboard discs and tying it in a very tight double knot before you push each piece of cardboard off the wool. 

Trim you pom pom and you're in business. 

Using the wool that you tied the pom pom together with, fasten one pom pom in the centre of either end, and ta-dah! you're done!!

It's a really quick, really easy pattern that produces the loveliest, squidgiest scarf ever.

All the best,

Bonny x

Knitting Madonnas, Pharaonic socks and jelly-belly shiver dogs ...

It's been a funny old week here in London.

I've been doing a textile course, which has kept me busy indoors with my yarns and fabrics, happy to leave the weather to do its worst outside.

And the worst that it threw at us was a blanket of snow. It was just a sparse, thin dusting, but when we looked out on Monday morning into the blackness of our back garden and saw the luminescent glow of whiteness ... well, it made us all very excited. No one more so than Maxi the Wonder Dog. He'd not seen snow before.

Snow Dog

And he thought it was brilliant stuff. The only problem was that he'd just had a trim ... brrr ... and he shivered like a jelly, refusing to come in and put on a nice warm coat until he was bribed indoors with promises of food. He's not brilliantly well trained, but he always shuffles over to see what's on offer if you shout biscuit very loudly in an excited voice. In fact loads of people who hang out in our local park think that's his name. How's Mr Biscuit today? they ask when we appear. And I have to make a special effort to remember exactly who Mr Biscuit is. Life can get complicated with all these aliases.

Hello! Did you say something about a biscuit?

All our little feathered friends continue to entertain us when they come visiting for dried mealworms and bird seed. They've figured out that the Wonder Dog is a noisy, but benign, presence and they carry on with their business regardless of how much he woofs at them. 

As part of my studies I've been having a look at the history of knitting. Not surprisingly it's been around since the advent of ... cold feet.  How do you like my Egyptian sock?

Well, OK, it's not exactly mine, but isn't it neat? It's one of a pair that live down in South Kensington in the Victoria & Albert Museum.

 They were created using a series of knots and just one needle somewhere between 410 AD and 540 AD. Apparently that's how this whole knitting thing got started: just one needle, shortish lengths of yarn and a series of very, very complicated knots. These babies were designed to be worn with sandals, which is never a good look in any age, if you ask me. Just look at how frequently they've been mended, and how expertly those mends have been darned in. I'm guessing they suffered a lot of friction on the dusty roads of the fifth century. I'm also not sure about the big toe and little toes divide, which was presumably designed to fit around the toe bar of the sandals that made up the other half of this natty footwear combo. The story is that they were excavated from an early Romano Christian burial site.

Knitting was largely the preserve of the Islamic World until the Moors conquered Spain, whereupon they introduced this seductive textile to Europe, and we've been busy with our needles ever since. Although I'm reliably informed that no one figured out how to do purl stitches until the sixteenth century.

I'm loving the Knitting Madonna (above), busy with her needles when the angel came calling. She was painted by Bertram of Minden in the very early 1400s.  Knitting was catching on, and for a while knitting Madonnas were all the rage.

Then the Tudors came along with their doublets and hose. Suddenly a well turned calf could be shown off to great effect with a knitted stocking that refused to sag in all the important places, and knitting got all sexed up.

It's amazing to be part of a tradition that stretches so far back. We've come a long way from our Egyptian socks and Knitting Madonnas to the Knit and Natter groups of today, but for my own small part I'm happy to belong to the needle-waving fraternity. When a bunch of people get together with their yarn and their pins a special sort of alchemy takes place. Strangers quickly become friends, everyone has at least one subject in common and before you know it the conversation is flowing freely and the laughter is ringing out around the room. It's way better than meditation: it not only calms your mind, it gives you loads to talk about and helps keep your extremities warm to boot!

All the best for a sensational weekend,

Bonny x
As shared on Friday Finds

Hearts & Kisses Fairisle cushion ...

I'm showing all the symptoms of having developed an obsessive compulsive disorder with knitting Fairisle. I've always been a lover of bright, vibrant colours and this technique really plays to that passion. It embraces colour: the bolder the better.

Now I like to have something to celebrate. I've moaned a lot about what a miserable month January is on the basis - amongst others - that it doesn't have the decency to throw up one good excuse for a party. So, by the time I get to February, I'm really looking forward to all the fun and nonsense that is St. Valentine's Day.

If you'd like to spruce up your boudoir ahead of the big day you may like to make one of these:

Go on: embrace your inner girl and go pink!

I've got grand plans for a cluster of these little cushions in contrasting candy colours, which should look good scattered on the white bed linen of a guest bedroom. I had a couple of cushion pads that were looking rather tired in their current garb so I decided to use one of those. It measured 44 cm x 33 cm or 17"x 13" if you prefer Imperial, and I designed my cover to fit. I think it's a standard-size rectangular cushion over here in the UK.

I chose Peter Pan merino baby which is a lovely soft squidgy wool that comes in a pleasing selection of candy colours. I chose this dusty pink (colour code 3036) as my main colour with a cream contrast (colour code 3031). This wool knits on 4 mm/ US size 6 needles.

The pattern is worked in stocking stitch, which is alternating rows of knit and purl going back and forth for each row.

Cast on 99 stitches in your main colour (pink in my case) and work two rows in stocking stitch.  If you would like to make a larger or smaller cushion you can increase or decrease by adding or subtracting stitches in multiples of 11.  I've designed my pattern to work over 11 stitches and 20 rows. You may also like to use circular needles, but work them straight. I always prefer to work with circulars when I can as they're much more portable and place less stress on your wrists if you're working with a heavy fabric.

Now you need to follow my graph for the patterned rows that follow, repeating each group of 11 stitches across your row until you reach the end. You will have 9 hearts in total working across. Each square is one stitch, and you change colour as shown by the colour of the squares. Please remember when you work a purl row that you have to follow the graph from right to left.

Keep going until your work is almost 33 cm long. I worked 4 sets of hearts and kisses to get to the bottom of my cushion, and then I finished off with 2 rows of stocking stitch i.e. 1 row of knit and 1 of purl. Then cast off.

When you're done it's really important to block the knitting to straighten it out and get it to the exact dimensions of your cushion.

I pinned mine to the dining room carpet with blocking pins (long pins with bar ends - you can buy them on Amazon). Using a tape measure check and double check that you've got it the right length and width. You really don't want to pull it out of shape at this stage.

Then take a steam iron, and holding it really, really close to the surface of the cushion but without actually touching it, press the steam button and infuse the yarn with steam. I like to use fragrant ironing water for this as it adds to the sensory experience. 

Now just leave your cushion in place until it's dried out - overnight ought to do the trick. When you unpick your creation it will have magically conformed to the shape in which it was pinned giving you something that's much easier to work with. 

You could knit a back to match in the same pattern or in plain stocking stitch, but I chose to back my knitted front panel with some jersey crepe that I found in the same candy pink. I'd originally headed out to my local fabric store thinking hopeful thoughts of a lovely, plush short-pile velvet in that wonderful tone, but there was none to hand so I compromised on the jersey crepe rather than spend a week searching all the shops for the exact thing that I had in mind. Life's just too short. In any event I like the contrast in texture when you back a knitted panel with another fabric. 

I cut the crepe to the size of the cushion allowing a 2.5 cm seam allowance all the way round (i.e. I cut a rectangle of 49 cm x 38 cm along one selvage of the cloth to keep me straight and to make sure that the stretchiest part of the cloth ran the depth of the cushion), and then sewed it into a rectangle, killing the raw edges with a double seam all the way round. Keep checking with your measuring tape each time you pin and tack a seam to make sure that you've not pulled it out of shape, and that it measures the correct finishing size (44 cm x 33 cm in my case).

 When you've sewn the backing to the correct size you need to stitch it to the knitted panel (wrong side to wrong side) with an over-locking stitch that allows a little bit of movement as between the two. Jersey was a good choice of backing as it's quite stretchy, but if you're working with something stiffer you will want to use lots of small overlocking stitches that allow for a little movement.

When you've got 3 sides done, slide your cushion inside the envelope and sew up the remaining side. 

By the time I'd got it all sewn together it was starting to look quite good. I reckoned that I could have left it like that and it would have been fine.

Here it is before I cut the thread from sewing it up - you can still see it dangling from the top right hand corner:

Moreover if you leave it like this without any further embellishment you really get to appreciate the contrast in textures between the front and the back.

But I decided that I'd knock up a quick i-cord trim to go all the way around the edges of the cushion.

If you'd like to do one it's the easiest thing in the world to make.

Cast on 3 stitches, and knit one row. When you've got to the end of the row, don't turn your work around. Push the stitches back to the top of the needle they're on and start knitting the next row using the live end of the yarn, which will be at the wrong end of the row. You simply pull it across each row and it closes the fabric to create a tube. And you keep knitting and sliding the stitches and then knitting the next row without ever turning your work until you've got the length of trim that you need.

I've knit this row, pushed the stiches back up the active end of the needle and pulled the live end of the yarn across the back of the row to knit the next row WITHOUT turning the work around.

When you've got it the right length just sew it around the edge of the cushion, sewing the two ends of the trim neatly in place. Start and finish sewing the trim at one of the bottom corners of the cushion, so that the join is not going to be noticeable when the cushion is sitting upright.  I also didn't cast off until I'd almost attached all of the trim so that I could rip it back a bit to get the perfect length. It's a bit fiddly as the i-cord is very stretchy which makes calculating how much you're going to need a bit tricky. As a result it's best not to cast off until you've got most of it sewn in place and can see exactly what you need to finish.

And bingo! Hearts and kisses: you're all set for Valentines Day!

All the best for now,

Bonny x

As shared on Texture Tuesday and image-in-ing

West London garden birds ...

I've only gone and got myself a brand new hobby ... .

 I've become a twitcher!

Now let me quickly clarify exactly what this new passion of mine consists of ... before you start thinking I've developed some sort of itchy skin complaint or an embarrassing nervous condition.

I've started to watch the birds in my back garden ... obsessively.

It all started innocently enough with a vague feeling that my poor little feathered friends must have been suffering from a serious case of the January blues when the frost froze the ground to the point where normal food foraging became impossible.

I trooped off down to the garden store and bought some bird feeders, which I strung up on random branches around the back garden. Well I say random, but to tell the story straight there was nothing random about it: the branches were all strategically chosen so that the little critters wouldn't poop-bomb my decking and garden furniture.

And thus began my obsession with what was going on outside my kitchen window.

I've had all manner of furred and feathered visitors.

A ravenous flock of these cheeky green chaps seem to live hereabouts.

I think they're parakeets. And let's just say that I was more than a  little surprised when they showed up en masse to raid my feeders. I boasted about them to my chum, the Whippet Mummy, at the school gates. Whippet Mummy was not impressed.

They hang out in her garden, raid her cherry tree and kick up a merry racket like a bunch of teenage delinquents at their first cider party. I have since learnt how eloquently her words sum up the squawk-along antics of our green-feathered friends.

Luckily we have some other very well-behaved native birds. 

The pigeons love, love, love the berries on my ivy. 

And, being British pigeons, they form a nice orderly queue to take their turn feasting on the vines.

I got very excited when I saw this handsome chap, and had to follow him around the garden with my telephoto for ages before I could get a decent angle on him. I think he's a great spotted woodpecker.

Great spotted woodpecker

Next up was this very handsome fellow, who came with one of his chums. If I knew how to sex a starling I might have been able to say whether it was his girlfriend or not. In any event I'm pretty sure he's a starling.

Now this little man has got to be my favourite. I have a great, big, soft spot for the robin. Here he is, balanced on top of Emi's swing, waiting his chance with the peanuts. What a well-mannered little boy he is.

These birds were rather splendid. Sadly they're not really in focus. I think they may be some type of sparrows. They came in a big feathered gang.

I have a lovely little blackbird who sweetly serenades me with song before she partakes of my back-garden bounty.

And then there's old Cheeky Paws, who's not even a bird, although he thinks he's cock of the walk in this garden. He usually arrives over the garden wall, pausing on his way past to have a good look in through the kitchen window. 

He went to investigate the peanuts first ...

... hmmm ... very nice! Very nice, indeed. Don't mind if I have a few of these. 

... in fact, why stop at a few? After all I am trying to store some fat under this fine fur coat of mine.

... Aha ... and what's this other thing she's hung up for me? 

... I'm not sure, but it tastes good ...

... really, really, really good. 

Like why don't I just take this baby back to my drey, and have it all for myself ... . 

A serious amount of pulling and tugging ensued, accompanied no doubt by some mild squirrel bad language, which doesn't bear repeating.

I've done it! Eureka! I'm so outta here!

 And this little fat ball's comin' with me. It's got my name all over it!

And that was the end of one of my fat balls. 

It's a circus out there, and I seem to be spending an unhealthy amount of time watching it. In fact I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm freaking the neighbours out. I mean how would you feel if there was this weird woman with a telephoto lens that seemed to be trained on your bedroom windows all the time ?? ERRR... 

All the best for now,

Bonny x