Do what you love & love what you do…

 

 

 

 

 

Its been a while since I last posted. To be more accurate its been a few days short of 2 months.

I’ve been busy during these two months. Not too busy to cook because I’m always cooking but I’ve just not had any time to shoot and write about any of it.

The reason for this lack of time? I’ve bought a coffee shop.

If you’ve followed my blog during 2014 you would have seen my posts about my love (& addiction) of coffee and cake so naturally the next step was to do what I love and buy my own coffee shop.

Let me be the first to say its not the biggest coffee shop in the world, it’s not even the biggest coffee shop on the street (and there’s 5 others on the same street) but what makes this coffee shop so special? it’s mine and I’m going to do what I love to do.

It would be a bold statement for me to say that my coffee shop is going to be the best on the road but this is my plan. Our coffee comes from Oxford. It’s wood roasted, fair trade & organic, our tea’s are loose leaf and produced in Cheltenham. Our cakes are not from a packet, they are made on site fresh everyday by whisking eggs, beating butter and folding in flour and our sandwiches are made fresh daily using artisan breads with chutneys from Stroud.

Unfortunately this means the time I have for Custard or Cream will be reduced but if you like what you’ve seen here follow me over on twitter at @bakeandbrewhq for all the latest news, views & recipes.

 

 

Cocktails & Dreams (Blink Blink Blinkerdy Blink): Is A £15 Cocktail Worth £15?

Away from cooking I love films and of all the films I’ve watched (which are a lot) I know 5 of them line for line: Days of Thunder, Top Gun, War Games, Escape to Victory & Cocktail. I don’t have a thing for Tom Cruise but during the 80’s & 90’s he made some cult movies.

For those of you that haven’t seen Cocktail it’s a love story (aren’t all the best films?), boy meets girl, boy messes it up, boy does all he can to win back girl.

 

Sorry I digressed.

At a pivotal point in the movie Tom Cruise & Brian Brown discuss names for their potential bar should life go to plan (which it doesn’t). Tom Cruise comes up with the name Cocktails & Dreams where he explains the neon light will go blink blink blinkerdy blink.

Quick Recipe: Pesto Potato Salad

The shorts have been swapped for jeans, the tee-shirts and flip-flops have been long packed away and the memories of running in the light evenings with the sun shining have been filled with dark rain soaked evening runs.

So summer has gone and the long nights are drawing in but before we replace our light evening meals with hot stodgy food lets have one more go at extending summer with this simple Pesto & Potato Salad.

The First 50: A Look Back At My Top 10 Post So Far

When I had the idea of starting my blog back in April I planned to write 1 post a week, so by my calculation I worked out that I would have got to 50 posts somewhere in March 2015.

I’d given myself a target of one post a week not because I don’t have the recipes (I have 1000’s in a drawer waiting to be cooked) or the fact that I don’t get time to cook (I cook everyday. If I don’t cook at work I’m always cooking at home) but for the simple reason I just didn’t know what I was doing.

Along the way I’ve learnt a little lot (At the begin I knew nothing so I’m in a better place) so post 51 is a look back at my favourites from the first 50 posts.

Quick Recipe: Thai Butternut Squash Soup

Halloween will soon be upon us there will be an abundance of different types of pumpkins and squash’s available to buy from your local farmers market, greengrocers and supermarket.

So if your panning on carving a pumpkin or want a way to use up the squash’s in your fridge try this amazingly simple soup packed full of Thai spices with hints of ginger, chilli & coriander.