Peanut butter, Chocolate and Banana Milkshake

Now that Summer is truly on its way we thought it was about time we made another summery treat to share with you. Over the weekend to get us up and going in the mornings we made our peanut butter, chocolate and banana milkshakes! 

You can add ice-cream for extra coolness but the frozen banana itself usually generates enough cool creaminess. These are just delicious - try for yourselves...

Ingredients 

Serves 2 

2 bananas

1 dessert spoon of drinking chocolate powder

1 heaped tablespoon of peanut butter

300ml milk

2 spoonfuls of vanilla ice-cream 

Method

- The night before you want to make your milkshakes, slice the bananas, pop them in a plastic bag and freeze them over night

- When you want to make your milkshakes, blend all over the ingredients in a blender, except for the ice-cream

- Then add the ice-cream for extra coolness, if desired. 

By Melodie Walter

What We're Listening To...

Once I Was An Eagle is the new album from an absolute favourite English gem Laura Marling. We take a quick look at why this record should be your new listening choice for this week. 

Firstly, if you weren't in love with Alas, I Cannot Swim and I Speak Because I Can - her first two albums, then we can only assume that was because you hadn't learnt of her literary inspired and brilliant song-writing. At the time of her musical inception to the public ear circa. 2008 she was welcomed by most of us as a wonderful new talent and was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize at just eighteen. Marling had a steady success for the next couple of years and has been refining her style as she's gone onwards and upwards. 

Now twenty three years of age, still very young, she has gained credible life experience and her songs simultaneously have gained a depth beyond what most people her age might be able to portray, which is really what gives Marling her USP.

On Once I Was An Eagle there are songs that are dark and angry but sung in her melodic charm become almost at times seductive. It is a story-telling album of her failed relationships made up of sixteen songs that were recorded within ten days' recording and the result is that Marling has left her childish ways behind and brought us an album which we can listen afresh to her new life concepts and enjoy her compelling vocals and acoustics.

You can buy Once I Was An Eagle from Virgin or download from iTunes.

By Melodie Walter

When I Grow Up...

Following on with our When I grow up series, we caught up with textile designer Naomi Tuffery founder of Tuff Love, who specialise in creating stunning digitally printed silk scarves. Read on to find out how she managed to bag her dream job... 

You graduated with a degree in Textiles and Surface Design, was this is always your dream career?

Definitely not! When I finished my A-levels I thought 'Oh gosh! What am I going to do with my life now?!' I knew I wanted to do something arty but was unsure of the direction I wanted to go in so decided to do a foundation degree but was told they had no more places at my interview. I immediately thought it had all been a waste of time and that I was back at square one but the interviewer carried on talking with me and looked through my work and thought I was ready to go straight to degree and between us we hand-picked the Textiles and Surface Design on the spot. All of a sudden I was doing a degree! It was very surreal. Luckily when I started the course I fell in love with print design and that was when I knew what I wanted to do with my life. 

Where does your inspiration for your designs come from?

A huge combination of things! I find that it's pretty random, for example I may stumble across an old photograph and it will inspire a whole collection. All it takes is one initial thought to expand and lead onto other things...

Who would you most love to see wearing one of your designs?

I think I would say Kate Middleton. She has become such a fashion icon and she dresses very smart, classy and sleek – A look that I think my scarves go with perfectly.

Do you have a favourite piece?

I have a couple in the collection that I like the most but if I had to pick I would say my Winter scarf print, partly because of how it came about. Last year I went out to my car and it was completely covered in the most beautiful intricate patterns that had been formed by the ice overnight. I photographed them and used them to design this piece. That then inspired the whole of the Seasons Collection.

 Who or what is your biggest inspiration?

My mum. She is so supportive of me and my career. Having her motivate me and keep me positive keeps me going and not let me give up on my dream of being a successful textile designer. I’m getting there one day at a time and I wouldn’t be able to do it without her.

Describe your average day...

Well I work freelance and am building my business up at the moment so I have other part time work around it. This means most days I will work a shift at one of my part time jobs and then I will go home and try to do as much designing as I can in the evenings, or visa versa. I love to design in my room with a big mug of tea and background music or telly. My favourite days are when I have no other work on and I get to work from home all day creating beautiful things! I'm hoping one day I can quit the other jobs and that can be my full working week.

Any advice for our readers wanting to take the plunge for themselves?

Make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to do with your business. You don’t want to waste time and money investing in something that is not going to work. You need to look at every aspect of your idea and decide whether it is a good one. When it came to picking my label name it took me ages and before I finally settled with ‘Tuff Love’ I asked most of my friends and family what they thought. They all loved it and I’m so happy I stuck with that one.

Tell us something no one else knows about you...

I spend a lot of my time designing from my bed, drinking tea and eating chocolate! It is work, I promise!

What does the future hold for Tuff Love?

I will definitely be widening my range of products. At the moment I am just selling digitally printed silk scarves but soon I will have hand printed T-shirts available too. Then even further in the future I hope to have even more products!

Oh and as we've just released our music issue, we want to know what's on your ipod at the moment?

 I am in love with ‘Waiting All Night’ by Rudimental! I cannot stop listening to it. It is definitely my favourite song at the moment. 

See more of Naomi's designs on Etsy and Folksy, and at Nisbett and George

What We're Listening To...

Probably not Daft Punk’s best album by a long chalk but Random Access Memories is Cellardoor’s listening recommendation for the week as there are some killer dance tunes on this record none the less.

Daft Punk, unsurprisingly, are French musicians (the French often tend to bring out the best techno music) Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter and in past years have produced some absolute gems in the past years including One More Time and Harder Better Faster Stronger.

After a few years’ absence the duo are back with cool and rather popular new single that some of you might have already heard (more than likely) Get Lucky featuring the super laid back and handsome Pharrell Williams.

Admittedly the best track from Random Access Memories released this month is Get Lucky and is already UK’s number one – an impressive feat for Daft Punk, not forgetting that this record is also the fastest selling album of the year so far. Listen and take a look to Get Lucky...

Their album can be on iTunes or other respectable online stores.

By Melodie Walter

Spicy Feast

Ooh yes! This week Cellardoor made a hot-pot full of spice, warmth and exotic flavours: our Moroccan and Spanish cuisine inspired dish of chicken and chorizo. It looks complicated but all that’s really required is to chuck what’s available into a pot and cook and serve up a mighty feast for you and your friends. 

Ingredients 

Serves 4 

Main 

8 chicken drumsticks (skinned) 

170g chorizo sausage (chopped) 

Marinade 

2 onions (chopped) 

2 carrots (chopped) 

2 celery sticks (chopped) 

3 garlic cloves (peeled) 

1 tin of tomatoes (chopped) 

1 tin of kidney beans 

1 glass red wine 

1 tsp paprika 

1 tsp cinnamon 

½ tsp ground chilli 

 3 tbsp olive oil 

Salt and pepper 

½ pint chicken stock 

1 juice of freshly squeezed orange juice 

Side dish 

Couscous 

1 lemon 

Plain yoghurt 

1 courgette (chopped and gently fried) 

Handful of mint 

1 tbsp olive oil 

Salt and pepper 

Method 

- Heat the oil in a large cooking pot or pan with a lid. Add the chicken pieces and fry until they are a light brown colour. 

- Add the onion, spices, heat a while and then add the stock, the celery, carrot, garlic cloves, orange juice and wine. Heat and bring to the boil. 

- Add the chorizo, kidney beans and tomato and simmer for 35-40 mins. 

- Make the couscous as the packet instructs you to, then add olive oil, seasoning and then add the lemon juice, courgette and mix. Add the yoghurt and mint on top. 

- Make sure you have some bread to hand to soak up the sauce.

By Melodie Walter

What we're listening to...

Icelandic twin sisters Jófríður and Ásthildur form the band Pascal Pinon. The name itself is a subtle variation of Pasqual Pinon, known as the Two-Headed Mexican, a circus performer from Texas in the 1900s who was basically a bit of a freakshow. Yet there’s nothing freaky about Pascal Pinon and certainly there’s no link between that and their music, but it does show their sense of humour that they play on the fact that they are just so closely linked together as sisters. 

The girls who are from Reykjavík in Iceland are eighteen and are in school studying classical music. Though they have expressed their love and talent for writing from a very early age, apparently they used to dictate poems, songs and stories to their parents who would then record them and started writing and producing music together aged fourteen. 

Twosomeness is their second album. Using each others strengths and weaknesses, Jófríður excels at the song writing and Ásthildur concentrates on the arrangements, backing vocals and playing instruments. And both their skills combined they make some pretty special songs. 

Take a look at their talent here in their video for Bloom taken from Twosomeness.

They’re next playing live at Hoxton Bar & Kitchen in London on May 29. Buy tickets here and download their music on iTunes.

By Melodie Walter