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Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on canvas. This is one of those artworks where straightaway I had a really strong idea of what I wanted to do. Trying to get that idea to actually freaking work was really, really hard. I now know all sorts of ways not to try and take a print from a halved cabbage. Sometimes it's best to keep pushing at an idea until it resolves. Sometimes it's best to let it go and simmer in the unconscious for a while. After spending an entire day trying to take a print from a cabbage and sketching out variation upon variation on my idea, I decided to let it sit. In the meantime, it dawned on me where the idea was stemming from, and knowing this, the image resolved itself.  So a shoutout to cartoonist Hugh MacLeod of Gaping Void for the inspiration for this rather abstract line based piece and no cabbage print in sight after all.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

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The meatless meals recipe

Cabbage rolls are a common and very popular dish throughout eastern europe. This recipe is  adapted from a cabbage rolls recipe I used to make quite often, until I became fed up with the finicky rolling process. So now I make unrolls. Basically the same ingredients. Very similar method. No effort required. And way more flavour than you would expect from cabbage.

After a bit of sleuthing I believe this recipe to be of Turkish origin. I'm pretty sure I copied the ingredients list on the grounds the recipe 'looked interesting' from a library book I borrowed at least 10 years ago. I didn't note the details of this book at the time. The recipe has gone through quite a few changes to end up in this form - it's now vegetarian, the rice flavourings have been added and it's been adjusted to work as 'unrolls'. However the spice combinations which work so well are exactly as I found them, and I would like to be able to give credit to the author of that book I borrowed all that time ago. Consider it done if I do manage to track that book down.

2 teaspoons butter

1/2 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 1/4 cups frozen vege mince OR 3/4 cup dried TVP plus 3/4 cup water OR 1 1/2 cups cooked lentils

1 1/2 cups stock

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/4 teaspoon thyme

3 pinches clove powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder

2 big pinches ground black pepper

1 bay leaf

2 tablespoons raisens or sultanas or currants

2 tablespoons / 45g slivered almonds

225g cabbage, finely sliced

440g tomato, chopped or pureed (perfect for excess tomatoes bottled in Autumn)

2 cups rice

4 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander - about 24g

zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon

Fry the onion and garlic in butter until golden.

Add mince/tvp/lentils, any extra water as directed and the stock. Then add the oregano, thyme, cloves, cinnamon, black pepper, bay leaf, raisens/sultanas/currants and almonds.

Stir well and simmer with the lid off until the liquid is gone, around 20 minutes.

Add tomato and cabbage and simmer for another 30 minutes (or more) until cabbage is nicely soft.

Meanwhile, cook the rice as you usually do. Drain and rinse if necessary.

Mix the coriander and lemon zest only (not juice) through the rice just before serving.

Serve the sauce on the rice and drizzle everything with the lemon juice.

Heartily feeds 4.