HEMSLEY & HEMSLEY

the art of eating well. HEMSLEY & HEMSLEY is Jasmine and Melissa Hemsley. We are a London based family business for people who want to live healthier and more energised lives. We make whole, organic, nutrient filled, delicious homemade foods, free of grain, gluten, high starch and sugar. We want to share the food we love cooking and eating. This blog is all about food that changes the way we feel.

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Do-It-Yourself pot noodle

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http://www.vogue.co.uk/beauty/2013/05/16/hemsley-and-hemsley-kelp-pot-noodle


Ah the Eighties and the Nineties - a time when it was okay to make food from sweeteners, flavourings, colourings, additives, preservatives and hydrogenated this and that. Pot noodles and microwave meals ruled - we all felt so advanced and free from the kitchen. It was somehow humourous to comment that your kid was running around “crazy on E numbers”. Out went our cooking skills, our patience for washing up or food prep and our confidence around food and our health. Up rose food intolerances and the power of the supermarket offering us choice but also creating a new relationship with food, disassociating us from its real provenance. We have said it before but thank goodness for pukka Mr Oliver and the rise of the TV cooking programmes. They have helped us come full circle and got us into the good life again. The recession and increased environmental awareness has also lent a helping hand. It’s now cool to be both frugal and splash out at farmers’ markets for quality food that supports both quality producers and our health!

This is our version of the pot noodle - fill a heat proof jar with an assortment of vegetables, top quality properly fermented miso, ginger and a handful of kelp noodles.  Add hot water and wait for the magic to happen. Delicious topped with a soft boiled egg.

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Must try: Umemboshi dressing

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We’re big fans of the Clearspring range and we love their properly fermented Tamari and miso.

They asked us to share a recipe with them and we knew it had to include umeboshi, a tangy salty picked plum revered since ancient times as both a food and potent health tonic. It adds an incredibly powerful flavour to broths and sauces and its particularly beneficial to your digestion

Roasted carrot and fennel salad with umbeboshi dressing

Ingredients: serves 2

Salad

  • 60g quinoa, we used black quinoa but use red or white too (ideally soak 8 hours or overnight, then drain and rinse for maximum nutrition and digestion)
  • 1 medium fennel, quartered
  • 2 medium carrots, sliced lengthways on the angle
  • 10 asparagus (when not in season, green beans or tender stem broccoli work well too)
  • 3 pink radishes sliced
  • 1 tablespoon of black and white sesame seeds
  • 1 teaspoon of coconut oil
  • 2 spring onions sliced on the angle
  • a little fresh mint and coriander

Umeboshi dressing

Method:

  1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
  2. Drain and rinse the quinoa and cook in hot water or hot stock (for more flavour and nourishment) according to the packet instructions, approximately 10-15 minutes. Drain and set aside
  3. Quarter the fennel and slice the carrots lengthways on the angle -  rub with coconut oil and roast for 8-10 mins or until tender
  4. Toast the sesame seeds in a dry frying pan, remove and set aside
  5. in the same pan, dry fry the asparagus by laying out on the pan, not too close and let them dry fry and brown on a medium heat for 1-2 mins on each side, depending on their thickness
  6. Prepare the dressing by blending all the ingredients or chopping everything finely and whisking with a fork or shaking in a jam jar
  7. Slice the radishes and spring onions
  8. Roughly chop the mint and coriander
  9. Spoon the quinoa into the centre of the plate and arrange the carrots, fennel and asparagus in the centre.  Scatter the radishes, spring onions, herbs and toasted seeds around

You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day, unless you are too busy then you should sit for an hour.

—Old Zen saying

Party in your mouth - Za’atar!

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Sorry about the spelling in the title of this post - it should read ‘Party in your mouth - za’atar’. Tumblr doesn’t ‘do’ apostrophes in the headings!

We love this. You’ve got to try it. And if you like this Middle Eastern blend of herbs, sesame seeds and sumac then go ahead and make batches of it -  keep a jar in the fridge to jazz up any dish and then make gifts of the rest for friends when you visit.  

http://www.vogue.co.uk/beauty/2013/05/08/hemsley-and-hemsley-zaatar-salad-recipe

HOOK & SON

Refinery 29 asked us where we loved to shop in London:

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“When it comes to milk it has to be Hook & Son. This family team makes real milk: unpasteurised, unhomogenised, full-fat, grass-fed milk, with cream on top just like back in the day. If we can get down to Borough Market early and beat the tourists, we’ll snatch up two litres of their delicious full-fat milk and a pot of their thick raw cream, as these are the only versions worth eating. If you have family and friends who also want to get their hands on proper organic milk, butter, and cream, then you can mail-order direct from the farm to your door.” 

THE SET TABLE - THE ART OF SMALL GATHERINGS

image Our dear friend, Hannah Shuckburgh has just published her first book.

As a stylist, writer, incredible cook and host extraordinaire, Hannah encompasses everything we love so it’s no surprise that we have been devouring her book and page marking, underlining and noting down every one of her tips and pearls of wisdom.  

Her book ‘The Set Table - the art of small gatherings’ is a guide to making a table look lovely with very modest resources. It’s all about really simple, beautiful things you can do to make even simple suppers look special. 

Hannah guides you through the elements of a perfect table - from linens to glasses, salt to napkins - revealing a little history of how our tables came to look the way they do, and giving ideas for how you can create a really welcoming table for the people you love.

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There are easy things to make, ideas for things you can reuse for a new purpose that you might already own, clever tricks for flowers, lighting, and so on. It’s about making every gathering special - even if its a bowl of homemade soup at the kitchen table, you can snip a little sprig of cherry blossom from the tree outside, pop it in a jam jar; fold out the creases of an old tablecloth, and you have elevated a simple supper to a feast.

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Hannah loved our anchovy dip so much, she put it in her book! Page 121 entitled ‘Mel’s bagna cauda’.  What an honour!

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Buy it here - you’ll be wanting one copy for you and a stash of them for presents 

Follow Hannah on twitter 

Japanese inspired superfood salad. Tahini miso dressing

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Hello sunshine - so super to see you! How about a superfood salad to celebrate with? The ingredients list reads like a who’s who.  We’ve got:

purple sprouting broccoli

asparagus - get it while you can!

shiitake

arame - that’s a seaweed

lemon juice

sesame seeds and their paste -Tahini

miso - properly fermented

chilli

coriander & mint and…

coconut oil!

Enjoy x

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The Big Buzz!

              

We’ve just heard from our friends at Katharine Hamnett that the EU has banned those poisonous neonicotinoid pesticides for 2 years which will give enough time to show what a difference it can make.

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Photo Nick Hopper

BBC: After Monday’s vote the EU Health Commissioner, Tonio Borg, said “I pledge to do my utmost to ensure that our bees, which are so vital to our ecosystem and contribute over 22bn euros (£18.5bn; $29bn) annually to European agriculture, are protected.”

Greenpeace EU agriculture policy director Marco Contiero said Monday’s vote “makes it crystal clear that there is overwhelming scientific, political and public support for a ban.

“Those countries opposing a ban have failed.”

Unfortunately that means us - the UK was among 8 countries that voted against the ban…

Thank you Vogue!

Happy anniversary to us and Vogue.co.uk!

Thank you to Lisa and the rest of the team for our beautiful flowers! It’s been really lovely working with you.  Thank you for looking after us x