Photos – Page 8 – Anthea Whittle

Did you know I have a second Tumblr blog? It’s where I indulge my girly obsessions with beauty products and especially nail polish.

This is one of my most epic manicures yet!

sparkledepartment:

The Langham Manicure

The kind folks at Langham Auckland gifted me a bottle of their limited edition Langham Pink OPI polish so that I could recreate their signature wallpaper look in a manicure.

Boy, those floral designs are complicated! I followed the basic shapes and curves of the flocked pattern with a tiny paintbrush.

I painted my own real nails plus one fake nail which I used as practice to start – that was a new experience, I was able to prob the falsie in the perfect position for me to paint. So simple! Now I understand why so many people just paint false nails and stick them on, but I still think it’s cheating!

Three coats of the Langham polish got the nice opaque pink, a solid slow design in Orly gold finished the pattern. The result is super delicate and pretty, with a subtle shimmer from both polishes. Delightful!

Laksa

I like to cook “interpretations” – where I read a recipe or two, and then do what I feel like based on what’s in my kitchen and what I think will taste good.

This tasted damn good.

Ingredients:

2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons crushed/grated ginger
1 tbsp red curry paste
Rind of half a lemon
1 tbsp canola oil
2 cups vegetable stock
¾ cup coconut cream (small tin)
2 cups skim milk
4 tbsp fish sauce
1tbsp brown sugar
Chilli flakes (dried) or fresh chopped chilli to taste
4 cored, diced tomatoes
½ cup desiccated coconut
5 fresh snapper fillets, cut into 2cm strips
2 cobs boiled corn
1 small capsicum, diced
½ carrot, julienned
2 spring onions, chopped
3 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Method

Heat the oil and add the garlic, ginger and rind on a med-high heat in a large saucepan that will hold all your ingredients. Fry briefly and add the curry paste and stir until the curry releases it’s fragrance.
Add the stock, stir. Add the coconut cream, milk, fish sauce, brown sugar, chilli, tomatoes and coconut, stirring continuously. Heat thoroughly, but pay attention because if it starts to boil it’s likely to escape your pot.
Lastly, reduce the heat to low and add your fish. It won’t take long before the fish is cooked.
Ladle into serving bowls. We topped ours with corn boiled and cut from the cob, fresh capsicum, fresh carrot, spring onion and coriander.

I’d like to say this recipe would serve five, but we definitely had to (because it was delicious) go back for seconds.

Laksa is meant to be served over udon noodles (yum!) but we didn’t have any, and the starchy corn was enough. I’d say this would feed more people with noodles.