Breakfast pizza (or scrambled tomatoes on toast & a poached egg)
Posted by: damianwatson on: September 26, 2010
- In: Breakfast | Cooking
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It’s our first proper year growing tomatoes and I can’t begin to describe the difference (so, of course, I will). They’re simply just so much tastier than anything you can get in the supermarket and, as often as not, from the greengrocer. We had 10 pomodoro plants on the go – the secret I think was being aggressive with them, nipping out extra growth and restricting them to only three sets of flowering vines.
This breakfast pizza takes as long as boiling water and poaching an egg. Great way to start the day.
1 egg
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 large (and very ripe) pomodoro tomato per person (two regular sized toms) sliced
2 splashes of balsamic vinegar
A few basil leaves
A sprinkle of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 slice of crusty bread
Get a pan of water boiling for your egg then heat the oil in a frying pan and place the slices of tomato in the pan.
Once the tomato is heated through (2 to 3 mins) gently break it up a little, add the balsamic splashes and season. Now crack your egg into the pan (I like 3 minutes for a runny yolk) and pop a slice of bread into the toaster.
Take the basil leaves, tear them with your hands then stir them into the tomato.
Finally grab the toast from the toaster and pour over the tomato juice followed by the tomato pulp. Place your poached egg on top, season generously then sprinkle the parsley.
Et voilà, a breakfast pizza.
Simple tomato sauce
Posted by: damianwatson on: September 13, 2010
- In: Cooking | Sauces
- 2 Comments
We’ve had a great crop of giant pomodoro tomatoes this year so I’m turning the surplus into sauces and chutneys. Here’s a simple sauce from Elizabeth David’s Italian Food
which can be turned to many uses.
- 4lbs of tomatoes chopped
- 1 onion, 3 sticks celery & one carrot finely chopped
- some parsley chopped
Add all of the ingredients together in a saucepan and heat at a medium temperature. Keep cooking until the tomatoes have turned to liquid and begun to reduce (30/40 mins). Pass the cooked ingredients through a fine sieve making sure you squeeze all the liquid out.
To reduce/thicken the sauce simply heat further.
Note, you don’t want to add seasoning, you can add that when you’re using the sauce in a recipe.
Chorizo, butter bean & parsley stew
Posted by: damianwatson on: August 5, 2010
I love the sweetness of chorizo mixed with the bitterness of parsley. This stew uses both these plus butter beans and veggies that were ready in the garden that day. I based it on a recipe published in the Scotsman.
A double handful of butter beans (soaked overnight)
Generous swollop of olive oil
3 cloves of garlic mashed up
1 medium onion chopped fine
1 chorizo sausage chopped into smallish chunks
1 decent glass of white wine
1 carrot diced
1 courgette diced
2 green peppers diced
1 ltr good chicken stock
Handful of small new potatoes halved
4 ripe tomatoes quartered
Big bunch of parsley chopped (about 8 tablespoons)
Put the butter beans into a saucepan, cover with water, bring to the boil and then simmer for 1 hour till soft.
Warm the oil in a pot and add the garlic. After a few seconds (before the garlic burns) add in the chorizo and cook till it begins to brown. Throw in the onion with a couple of tablespoons of water and cook on lowish heat for 10 minutes. Add the wine and boil fast until reduced (down to two tablespoons or so) then add the veggies. Keep these moving until they soften.
Pour in the chicken stock, potatoes, thyme and half the butter beans. Bring to the boil then simmer for 25 mins stirring now and then.
Finally add in the chopped parsley, tomatoes and rest of the butter beans, bring to the boil and serve with some crusty bread et voilà!
Ecotricity steps on the gas
Posted by: damianwatson on: July 25, 2010
Profits go into building green infrastructure
And now they’ve introduced the world’s first eco dual fuel plan. When you buy gas from Ecotricity the profit is ploughed directly into building “Gas mills” that convert organic waste into gas.
This is such a simple answer to convert the UK to renewable energy. If you had the choice between a supplier who invests in all types of energy (nuclear, fossil, renewable) or one that only invested in renewable which would you choose? The choice exists, I suggest that if you’ve not already done so, switch to Ecotricity now!
A sad day
Posted by: damianwatson on: July 8, 2010
- In: Business | HR | Management
- 6 Comments
This is a difficult and sad post to write and has taken me two weeks to do so.
My company, Greenhouse, has supplied online services to government for 8 years now. In that time we’ve had our ups and downs, we’ve made our mistakes and we’ve learnt and had some great triumphs. Recently, in the last year we’ve really upped our capability and were ready for the next step.
Government is 95% of our market and anyone in the UK will know that spending in government is in turmoil right now. None of our client base or leads are able to spend. So we have become part of the predicted statistics and last week I made my team redundant.
I know we’re not alone, many contractors and suppliers are struggling with the severity of the cutbacks. We’ve all seen it coming but I for one did not anticipate the total freeze that has happened.
For me there is the chance to broaden my horizons and in many ways it is relieving and exciting to be able to think about something new. But it saddens me to turn my back on a team that I’ve really enjoyed working with and being around. My thanks go to them for their loyalty, creativity and friendship.
This reaction in government is also nagging at me. Government is losing a substantial amount of intellectual capital and skills across its supply chain, exactly the stuff it needs to help deliver better value and services going forward. I hope for the sake of its staff in the civil service that some clarity is achieved quickly.
A sad day.
Pineapple & radish coconut curry
Posted by: damianwatson on: July 3, 2010
- In: Cooking | Curries
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This is a favourite of ours (and of our vegetarian friend Pete). Based on a recipe from the best book in the world, Charmaine Solomon’s ‘Encyclopedia of Asian Food’ which is just about to be republished. I cooked it last night with some leftover radishes and celery from the garden with a parsley and mint raita as a mouth cooler. You’ll need:
half a large firm pineapple
medium onion finely chopped
a handful of radishes, thinly sliced
stick of finely chopped celery
2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
tablespoon of ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
3 red chillis (small)
cup of coconut milk
3 cardamom pods bruised
3 whole cloves
small stick cinnamon
teaspoon or so of salt
teaspoon or so of brown sugar
Encyclopedia of Asian Food
Turn the pineapple into chunks that will fit into your mouth nicely. Fry onion and garlic. When softening add radishes and celery and continue frying until onions start to golden. Add coriander, cumin and chillis and stir well. Fry until they smell right! (About 2 minutes).
Add the pineapple chunks and coat with the fried mixture. Add coconut milk, whole spices, salt and sugar.
Keep stirring until coconut reaches simmering point then simmer until the pineapple chinks are tender.
Full marks to our brilliant work placement students, Alex and Hannah
Posted by: damianwatson on: July 2, 2010
I’ve just had a wonderfully fun week working with Alex and Hannah, both on the Advanced Creative & Media Diploma at Varndean in Brighton.
Our clients were Gordon Borer and Jeremy Blow who wanted to know what Brighton Businesses were doing to reduce their carbon footprints, how aware they were of the issues and what stories they might like to share about what they’re doing now.
We gave the girls an open brief, some tips and tools to interview businesses and asked them to come back with a presentation at the end of the week. What they found will come in later posts.
The results have been immensely rewarding. We’ve all found really valuable insights from their work and I can’t wait to share the findings with the Brighton business community. We’ve already booked Alex and Hannah to brief the board of Education Business Partnerships about what they’ve done and we may run some other presentations too.
Well done Alex and Hannah!
“We need a redesign of our website to…” – are you sure?
Posted by: damianwatson on: June 23, 2010
- In: Web design
- 2 Comments
I get to read a lot of tenders and requests for proposals to deliver online services. Often they start with this line, “We need a redesign of our website to…” At this point I often close the document and move onto the next.
Why’s that? First, because underneath this statement usually lies some important business needs that a redesign cannot hope to fulfill on its own. Second, because the world of online has come along way – engaging your customers requires the use of a much broader range of online channels.
I close the document because the author hasn’t got this and so we would pursue an uphill battle to convince her that what she wants is not what she wants!
Spending more time in the planning and articulation of your needs will have a substantial impact on the outcome of your project. The clearer you are, the better an agency can work with you and deliver success. Open up the planning to others, ten heads are better than one, but put away the napkin with the pencil-drawn site tree for now!
I’m looking forward to the day when a customer approaches us with “We want to create great relationships with our customers online!” My response will be “Tell me more, that sounds very interesting…”
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