RELISH

Sonoma Kalamata sourdough, red onion relish, leg ham, blue vein cheese, walnuts & thyme.

This ^ is my ultimate favourite home-made pizza combination, but as it has been quite hot this week I tried it on some nice sourdough & turns out it is definitely just as delicious on a sandwich. I love chutneys/ relishes & this one definitely does not disappoint.

Red Onion Chutney

NEED:

3 red onions

1 green apple

5-10 dried apricots

100ml red wine

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp honey

2 tbsp brown sugar

salt to taste

DO:

In a food processor, chop onions, apple & apricots until fine but not mushy.

Heat some olive oil in a medium saucepan and lightly fry onion mixture for 5 minutes

Add all other ingredients, stir to combine and simmer on medium heat, stirring occasionally, for around 1 hour.

The chutney will keep in a sterilised jar for a few months but is definitely too yummy to last that long!

EXPORT

On Wednesday night I attended the opening night of 'Export'- the UTS Visual Communications 4th year graduation show. Man, do I have a long way to go.

It was held in the former Carlton United Brewers' warehouses in Chippendale, a really industrial setting which added to the overall 'designery' feel of the exhibition. I found the branding of the show also very well considered. I'd really encourage you to visit if you're at all interested in design but you'll have to be quick because it's only open till 6pm today (26 November) at 50 Kensington Street, Chippendale (very close to Central station). Otherwise be sure to check out the rest of the UTS grad shows happening in the next week or so, the standard is very high (...and I'm not just saying that because I go there!).

Free drinks, cheese, salami, olives & fruit- what more could a designer want?

Taken with a Canon 600D

PS I've made these photos slightly larger- do you think this size is better or do you prefer the smaller sizes I posted images before?

AUTUMN IN SPRING

CINNAMON & RED WINE POACHED PEARS

NEED:

• 4 brown (beurre bosc) pears
• 3 cups water
• 1 cup red wine
• 1.5 cups sugar (brown or white)
• 1 cinnamon quill/ 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• plain yoghurt
• nuts (any kind)

DO:

• Add water, wine and sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring so the sugar dissolves
• Meanwhile, peel pears, leaving stem on ('cause it looks pretty)
• Place pears and cinnamon in the pot and cover with a square of baking paper (or half-cover with lid) and let simmer for about 30 minutes, turning pears occasionally
• Serve warm with some of the liquid, as well as a few spoons of yoghurt & sprinkled with chopped nuts.

Taken with a Canon 600D

The weather in Sydney has been pretty miserable for the past few days and it's hard to believe that summer is only a week away. Suitably, this recipe is very Autumny and perfect for days like today. As a dessert it's very healthy (I may or may not have had this for breakfast). I find the yoghurt balances the sweetness of the poaching liquid out nicely and the nuts add interesting texture. The taste reminds me of drinking mulled wine at some of the amazing German Christmas markets last year.

20

From Friday night. 1st photo taken by Nicole, who also got me that cool disposable camera.

DIY: CUT OFF SHIRT

I don't know if it's the way I dress or if look particularly needy but I always seem to get heaps of second hand clothes passed on to me. Most of the time these huge bags of clothes get passed straight to charity shops (no I don't want your old school uniform) but today I felt a bit inspired...

NEED:

• T-shirt (preferably rock 'n roll)
• fabric scissors

I found that it worked best by turning the shirt inside-out before cutting the sleeves off.

I got the idea to 'modify' this shirt from one of my favourite Sportsgirl tops- I really love the squareish shape of it. If the particular T-shirt is quite large, there isn't even a need to cut around the neck, I just found this one a tad tight for summer.

It literally took about 4 minutes to do this and I will definitely be trying this with some of my other old & forgotten T-shirts. Note: I am not actually a big fan of ACDC...but wearing this I like to think that I look like someone who is.

I had a really nice weekend- the party on Friday was great and I spent the rest of the weekend lazying by the pool drinking slurpees and San Pellegrino (one of my presents was a whole case of it!). Photos of Friday night to come soon.

IT'S MY PARTY

I'm currently in the process of preparing for a gathering (read: party - but I say 'gathering' so the neighbours don't complain) for my 20th birthday...tomorrow! I'm a domestic goddess at heart and I secretly love planning events like these. There are a lot more things I'd like to share (like how I'm keeping the party super environmentally friendly) but here are some prep shots and the menu for now. I've kept the food really simple & easy because there will be about 40+ people and I'd like to not be in the kitchen all night! Hopefully the weather will be nice and warm (unlike Sydney's weather today) so we might even be able to go for a swim in the pool...

BYO drinks

Water in glass bottles

Juice, soft drinks, mineral water

Mini bruschettas

Focaccia strips w/:
pesto dip, hummus, beetroot dip,
garlic & herb dip,
oil/ balsamic/ dukkah

Peanuts in shell

Soy snacks

Pretzels

Chips

...

Crusty rolls

Herb sausages

Ham off the bone

Red onion relish

Cheese

Baby spinach

Whole grain mustard

Mayonnaise

BBQ & tomato sauce

Salad: roast pumpkin, rocket, feta,
walnuts, red onion & pesto dressing

Salad: roast tomato, baby spinach, peas, pine nuts,
parmesan, red onion & reduced balsamic

Salad: couscous, cumin chickpeas, curry, coriander,
shaved almond, raisin, red onion & yoghurt dressing

...

Flourless chocolate cake

Coconut cake

Mango cake

Vanilla ice cream

Strawberries, watermelon, rockmelon

YEAR IN PROJECTS: PART 2

Some outtakes of a zine I made earlier this year for uni. Text is 'Spleen' by John Forbes.

Some more pages of my 'A MEAL FOR THE...' book.

YEAR IN PROJECTS: PART I

I'm free! I finally finished my first year of Visual Communications last Friday, and despite really enjoying it, it's such a relief to know I've got the next 3.5 months to catch up on sleep and relax. Here are some of the things I did this year:

This was our first ever uni assignment and seemed like such a daunting task at the time: identify two typefaces (Bembo & Futura), select their identifying features, arrange parts of the letterforms in a typographically interesting way. Laughable now, but definitely not at the time.

These little illustrations are part of an assignment we had to do on any object's design history - I chose electric mixers (...domestic goddess in the making). This is probably the full extent of my drawing abilities- even teachers remarked that I have a 'naive' drawing style...

At the start of the year we went on a 3 day excursion to Cockatoo Island. For the first project my group decided to map the textures that we could find in our section of the island, and how the cracks combine all the different elements of deterioration.

DEAR MUM

I actually didn't know it was possible, but I somehow managed to finish an assignment a full 48 HOURS before it was due. For this assignment we had to create some postcards with a visual metaphor on the front and an 'insight' to do with something we learn throughout the year on the back. I really liked the materiality of the postcards when actually printed on thick-stock watercolour paper - hence the photos instead of the straight files.

Done with pastels and probably the most 'artsy' out of all of the postcards, but I think it really communicates my attitude towards coffee/caffeine this year. Coffee has become much more of an everyday 'need' than something I just enjoyed over catch-ups with friends (the presence of a cafe serving Toby's Estate about 5metres from uni doesn't help either). This I really intend to change over the summer- all those takeaway cups are so bad, not to mention all that money!

Was intending to do this one with old Letraset transfer-letters but succumbed to laziness and just whipped it up on Illustrator. Notice how Gill Sans becomes Comic Sans at the bottom?!

Quickly did this about 5 minutes before I got it printed, but I still like its simplicity and message. And the pretty colours.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

I didn't really feel homesick much while in Europe last year, but one of the few moments I remember missing home a lot was when my mum sent me some homemade Anzac biscuits. This recipe is based loosely on a classic Anzac biscuit one, but made better with coconut and almonds (is that an unaustralian thing to say?). Anyway, it's good. Not overly sweet, they're ridiculously addictive, especially whilst warm & you can almost fool yourself that they're healthy...

OAT, COCONUT & ALMOND COOKIES

Need:

• 1.5 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup plain flour
• 0.5 cup desiccated coconut
• 0.5 cup brown sugar
• 125g butter (vegan = coconut oil)
• 3 tablespoons golden syrup
• 0.5 teaspoon bicarb soda
• 2 tablespoons boiling water
• flaked almonds

Do:

• Preheat oven to 150 degrees celsius
• Combine oats, flour, sugar & coconut
• Melt butter with golden syrup in a saucepan/ in the microwave
• Mix bicarb soda with boiling water and add to butter mixture
• Combine with dry ingredients
• Spread mixture over two trays lined with baking paper (the mixture will be quite dry) (you can make them into cookies at this stage but I find it's much easier to just cut them once baked, plus long shapes make for optimal tea/coffee dunking)
• Sprinkle almonds
• Bake for about 15 minutes (longer if you don't want them as chewy)
• Cool slightly (it'll be very soft when taken out but will harden in a few minutes), as soon as it's cool enough to handle, cut into rectangles. Or leave as one huge biscuit if you prefer.

Taken on Canon 600D

BEVERAGE

Having coffee in a Melbourne laneway on a cold winter's morning, shopping & (Nicole) drinking iced tea on a sunny day off, ciders (or good German lager) at the pub on a Friday night after a hard week: sums up my favourite drinks in my favourite places.

I had a very full-on week, trying to finish my most challenging assignment to date; creating my very own font (might post the finished product later but can't stand looking at it at the moment...or in the near future).Tonight was one of those nights where I was really craving a drink -in a non-alcoholic kind of way- even if the pub's cider selection was limited to 5 Seeds. I've got to say that the only difference I can tell between the new 'cloudy' 5 Seeds and the original is that the cloudy version looks more...well, cloudy. To me, they taste pretty much exactly the same.

Two more assignments then hello, 3+ month break! I'm in the process of neatening up the blog a bit (changed header, making all images roughly the same size) and will definitely start posting a lot more in the holidays, hopefully heaps more food-related things. Stay tuned!

BOOK COVERS

FROM THE RATIONALE: The words I had in mind when designing these book covers were ‘raw’ and ‘young’. I wanted the series to have a certain rawness & down to earth feel to them. I chose to use the three primary colours for a number of reasons; firstly, to make the book covers stand out amongst other books, people would also feel that their collection was incomplete if they only had one or two of the three colours. I also thought the three colours would add to the covers’ unrefined feel and it was convenient that each book seemed to fit each of the colours: red suited The Motorcycle Diaries well because how it led to Guevara’s eventual socialist revolution, yellow fitted On The Road because a lot of the book takes place in summer as he travels through sandy deserts and blue for The Great Railway Bazaar because of the colour’s oriental associations. The different continents’ shape is without excessive detail to keep this boldness and I kept the typographic treatment of the covers simple for this same reason.