Fiery pea and edamame dip
SocialJoy
Now summer is officially here, what a great way to start off the month, with a visit to Rock & Rose restaurant in Richmond with some of my favourite girlfriends. We managed to bag a table in the garden and they even supplied sun hats and sunglasses for the guests! https://www.rockandroserestaurant.com/ Chiswick House also launched their first ever Chiswick Proms and despite the rain at the beginning of the picnic, we managed in true British style under brollys to still enjoy ourselves and the sun came out when Lesley Garrett came on stage with some classic last night of the proms from Albert Hall, for a grand singalong! https://www.chiswickproms.co.uk/
I joined the Victoria & Albert Museum, mainly because the Christian Dior exhibition had sold out, and this was a treat and so well put together. I have since visited the Mary Quant exhibition and with the V&A more or less on my doorstep it will be a delight to pop up for a couple of hours occasionally and make the most of my membership.
WorkJoy
My gorgeous live wall seemed to be flaying and finally managed to get hold of the guy who installed it, to find out a pipe on the irrigation had disconnected. By this time I had lost about a third of my plants and was feeling quite stressed about this. But now he has planted some new and different plants which shall be interesting and hopefully will flourish in the summer months!
I have been super busy working with some amazing Corporate Companies on live cookery demo’s which all varied from a pop up picnic theme at ISE Partners in W1, where I served a sunshine shot of fresh juice, grated turmeric and grated fresh ginger. This was followed by mooli tacos of avo, toms, red onion, coriander and lime juice, all raw so super healthy! A vegan (chicken) seitan salad with grapes & walnuts were on offer and a live cooking demo of pea, za’atar and feta fritters, followed last but not least with bite sized chocolate and avocado brownie bites. The evening was buzzing with ISE clients and another stall were serving cocktails to order, what is there not to like! https://www.isepartners.com/
I did a “lunch & learn” live cooking demo at LHH Penna in the city, serving a plant-based brain power smoothie and the pea fritters as above with a full on nutritional talk. The clients then tucked into the tasty dishes that I made. https://www.lhh.com/lhhpenna
On a similar note, I visited Visa at their Paddington offices to their staff and made a few other dishes such as roasted sweet potato and orange salad with sumac yoghurt and figs.
A Law firm in the city invited me in to give a proposal for one of their Christmas events, on a two hour workshop which I suggested a “vegnog” which will be plant-based milk with dates and some christmas spices, followed by a raw mushroom pate, brussels sprouts pad thai and vegan mince pies. They kindly invited me to their offices on Royal Ascot week for an afternoon tea which was devine!
KitchenJoy
I was busy running a few “eating through the menopause” courses this month and added a lot of soy ingredients to boost oestrogen levels at this stage of a woman’s life. The menu was fiery pea & edamame dip with flatbreads, and for the main we had zesty oat topped baked salmon and a tofu based chocolate mousse.
Fiery pea and wasabi dip
Serves 4
Ingredients:
200g frozen edamame beans
150g frozen peas
½ teaspoon wasabi
1 green chilli, deseeded & finely chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
Handful of watercress
Large handful of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
3 heaped tablespoons of yoghurt
½ tablespoon olive oil.
Bring a large pan of water to the boil and simmer the edamame beans for 2 minutes before adding the peas and cooking for a further minute.
Remove the pan form the heat, drain the vegetables and immerse them in cold water.
Blitz them in a food processor with the remaining ingredients
Drizzle with a little olive oil and the dip is ready to serve with flatbreads.
