Being a keen viewer of “foodie” tv such as Great British Menu and Masterchef, “deconstructed” food seems to be very fashionable at the moment. During a shoot this week for a local food business in Aylesbury I snapped this whilst the food was being made, my take on a deconstructed egg!

Great article about us in this weeks Bucks Herald. Click on the picture to read in full!

Imaging Essence in the Bucks Herald 16th Feb 2011

Article by Sally Dorling at Marketing Foods, photograph courtesy of Jay McLaughlin

For those of you following me on Twitter, you may be familiar with the occasional excitement I’ve been tweeting through my discoveries in growing our own vegetables this year. The idea to “grown our own” was first met with severe cynicism from my other half @spurssimon (twitter name, I don’t generally call him that) as he thought it would be another casualty of the infamous Debbie “enthusiasm curve” (go out, buy everything, spend a day going mad gardening then lose interest and leave him to keep everything alive). This “fad” however is a tad different for a number of reasons:

• I’ve discovered container gardening which means I don’t have to do any weeding
• Rather than just pretty flowers these growing things have an end purpose, I’m already thinking about recipes where I can use them
• This year is the first year when I have been working locally so I can really take the time to appreciate the garden, the morning daily inspection of the garden is a great way to start the day
• I can even calculate an actual “return on investment” with herbs, vegetable and fruits rather than an intangible it makes the garden look pretty
• I have discovered an intense appreciation of old episodes of “The Good Life” and scarily could actually empathise with the “talking to seeds to see which grows first” episode (we are currently having a ‘which sunflower is the tallest competition’ going on), and our future aspirations are now frequently alluded to as “when I’ve got chickens, and you’ve got bees”

The biggest thing however I really really didn’t reckon on happening was how possessive and proud I would be of the produce, I can honestly now see why competitions can become so fierce at local country shows, I’ve even scared myself by discovering maternal instincts for baby cucumbers and the excitement as the first baby beet pushed it’s way through the earth from seed – really, I need to know, I am certifiable is it just I’ve finally succumbed to the (late) 30ish something way of life???

Anyways, as is my mantra of a picture can speak a thousand words, I thought I’d share some of the latest additions to the imaging essence container garden, and I warn you, the baby cucumbers are seriously cute!!

Enjoy!

So I blink and it’s Easter – seriously where is this year going?!

Anyways we went out to shop at PE Meads Farm shop near Tring yesterday in order to stock up for the Easter weekend, main shopping purpose was for their home reared meat and fantastic chiltern rapeseed oil. Whilst there I picked up some black pudding as a cooked breakfast bank holiday weekend treat, when I came across these monster mushrooms in the veg section – bloomin’ MASSIVE, one of them actually weighed in at 0.25kg, probably not a world record, but certainly biggest ‘shroom that’s seen the inside of my kitchen! So the monster mushroom breakfast plan took hold, picked up some lovely free range and eggs to create a breakfast with the mushroom as the hero, it would have been rude to do anything else!

Me being me just had to capture it on camera – so here’s a few shots of the Monster Mushroom Breakfast – hope you enjoy looking as much as we did eating!!

Monster Mushroom weighing 0.25kg

Not one but two monster mushrooms

You don't get texture on eggs like that from a supermarket!

Okay, so maybe getting overly arty - but I love this job!!

About to cut into the stack, huge mushroom baked with butter and a balsamic & wholegrain mustard dressing, black pudding and poached eggs

If I'm being critical then the egg is slightly over cooked

and the overall feedback from mr imagingessence was lots of oohs & ahhs (have to confess I thought it tasted rather good as well)

So you’ve made the effort, cooked a delicious valentine’s meal just for two, and want to wow with a great cheese course, you won’t get far wrong with one of these beauties from our friends at the West Country Cheese Co

Perfect valentines cheese course

Valentine cheeses

Who says valentines shouldn't be cheesey....

After I took the pictures I managed to bagsy myself one of these, but don’t tell the other half, it’s supposed to be a surprise!!