Beautiful Beads

Last summer I spied a necklace on someone that I really liked the look of.  I took a mental picture of it and decided that it couldn't be beyond my wit to make my own version of it.  I did a bit of internet research and discovered that I could buy a beginners' bead making kit on eBay for less than £15.  This included a booklet, the necessary tools, and a variety of equipment (including beads) to get me on my way.

I had a go and found that it wasn't too difficult to make a pair of simple drop earrings.  However, I didn't like the beads in the kit enough to want to try and make a necklace out of them.  Luckily for me, there's a bead shop on Poole High Street near The Quay, so I hot-footed it to there one lunchtime and had great fun choosing lots of colourful glass beads.  I took the kit and the beads on holiday with me and came up with my first creation.

 More recently, I bought a black and red dress which I didn't have any jewellery to go with.  I wanted something a bit lighter than my first piece, so decided to create a more 'floating' design.  The beads for this one cost me just over £5 (and I have lots of the smaller ones left over for something else). 

There are lots of bead suppliers online if there isn't a shop near you, and the designs are limited only by your imagination.  You can make something that goes perfectly with your outfit, and at a length to suit you.  It really is quite easy to make something eye-catching and unique.

Yard Long Beans or Barbati

Yard Long Beans

I wanted this week's culinary adventure to yield something I could bear to eat after the bitter melon disappointment.  So I opted for something a lot less alien looking - in fact, just a very long version of the french beans I cook with quite often anyway.  My research showed that these are an Asian favourite (China, Thailand, India, Malaysia, etc.) and several of the recipes I found teamed them up with sweet combinations such as coconut or jaggery (essentially block sugar).

Heart-shaped Bean Slices

I decided to go for something with coconut and followed Smitha's Spicy Foods recipe also known as Barbati Kobari Koora.  Urid (or urad) Dal are black lentils that have been peeled and split.  I used nowhere near as much as a tablespoon of red chilli powder - I sprinkled it carefully!  I used coconut powder and I added the turmeric at the same time as the ginger garlic paste.

Barbati Kobari Koora

The smell of the kitchen when I stirred in the coconut powder was delicious, as was the finished dish.  I'd definitely recommend this recipe to anyone fancying a new twist on beans.

Bitter Melon or Karela

Slice through the bitter melon

Have you ever passed an exotic grocery shop and seen all sorts of weird and wonderful fruit and veg that you have no idea what you'd do with?  It can't just be me!  We're lucky to have one of these shops just round the corner so I decided to investigate some of the ingredients a bit further.  They do such a variety in there and if they don't have it, no matter where its origin, they'll try and get it for you if you ask.

Close up of the bitter melon skin



You may have noticed a green vegetable that looks like really warty-skinned cucumbers.  They look very alien to me. I looked them up on Wikipedia and found out they're called Bitter Melon (amongst other things) and do indeed come from the cucumber family. They pop up in all sorts of cultures' cookery including Indian, Chinese and South Asian. It's used for all sorts of medicinal purposes including diabetes and malaria.

As its name suggests, it's very bitter.  The lighter it is (it goes from green to yellow when ripe), the more bitter the flesh and the sweeter the pulp around the seeds inside.  Having tried it quite green today, I wouldn't dream of tasting it when it's yellow.

I found an Indian recipe for a vegetable dish courtesy of Vah Reh Vah . There's a video with the recipe and his face when he tastes the juice (albeit the bitterest ... but most medicinal part) says it all. 

However, it was an interesting experiment and finally satisfied my curiosity about this weird looking vegetable.

A selection of the ingredients

The bitter melon cooking

The finished dish

I'm wondering whether I didn't pick the vegetables very well as I didn't really know what I was looking for in terms of the right level of ripeness.  I think I need to track somebody down who knows how to do it properly before I swear never to buy it again ...

A Very Crude Time Lapse of Nail Growth!

The power of WAH!  From ragged to polished in 7 seconds (4 weeks real time).

NLP Practitioner Obs 1

09/04/11

First day back at work after 7 days of intensive NLP training (second instalment of three training segments).  Feeling pretty euphoric.  Bump into a variety of people who tell me I look different - this seems to boil down to a mixture of having been outside a fair bit (in the sun) and looking much more relaxed generally.  Must remember this - it feels good!  Discover that one member of my team uses highly kinesthetic language but  eye position is focussing on the middle distance to my right rather than down.  Subject speaks slowly and resonantly.  Early evening check up on a course buddy who I'd worked with the day before to see how something we'd been working on is going with them - just over 24 hours later what seemed completely stuck is now all resolved already!  Am going to have a go at time lapse photography of nail growing progress.

Homemade Handcream Update

My sister's pregnant (in fact, at the time of writing this she's due to give birth imminently) and had put handcream on her Christmas list this year.

Following the success of the handcream I made for my partner, I investigated suitable essential oils for use in the third semester of pregnancy.  I came up with Rose, Orange and Lavender.  Instead of filtered water, I used rose water (which I got from our wonderful local 'Exotic' Grocer in Parkstone - Makkah - see below).

She really likes the cream and has already put in an order for a second batch once this one runs out.  So's my partner.  I think I've started something ...

MAKKAH
In writing this update, I've discovered that you can shop online at Makkah and they have a delivery service.  This is very exciting!  For one thing, I can learn what some of the unrecognisable leaves and vegetables are.  There's even a recipe section.  I'm going to get browsing immediately!

Strawberry and Vanilla Vodka Update

The recipe for this was set out in an earlier blog and I promised to let people know how it turned out.  In a word, 'delicious'!

The colour came out of the fruit and into the vodka, making it a gorgeous pink colour.  It smells really wonderful too.  I've been pouring it out with the aid of a tea strainer to catch the strawberries, then eating them separately.  I reckon they'd make a really good desert topping mind you.

I still haven't tasted this year's sloe gin, but will get round to it in due course.  The truth is that the strawberry vodka was just more enticing than the sloe gin!