Tasty Thai Class

Treetops smells amazing this evening!

It was a very busy class today, millions of ingredients and plenty of chopping. We were roasting cumin and coriander seeds, chopping chillies and lemongrass, being introduced to galangal and turning our noses up at the smell of shrimp paste!

Everyone made their own green curry paste in the morning to take home with them, it smelt so fresh and delicious.

We had a feast of a lunch with thai fish cakes, green mango salad with prawns, a green chicken curry with thai rice, chicken satay with a delicious delicious sauce, thai beef salad with cucumber, and a beautiful fruit platter of pineapple, papaya, mango, dragon and passion fruit, served in a lovely syrup with coconut ice cream, with a huge sparkler on the top because we were celebrating 3 birthdays today - Judith, Steve and Jon. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

June Flower Class - Vintage Style

Susanna is back on Tuesday 15 June for Vintage Style Flowers.

Vintage style is very on trend at the moment, especially at Weddings, using beautiful pale and old fashioned flowers, styled in teacups and old china pieces.

The flowers Susanna is hoping to bring with her on the day include sweet peas, roses, including Secret Garden, Metalina, Old Dutch and Amnesia and hopefully some English roses too, astilbe, sweet William, astrantia and herbs.

The day will be useful if you are planning on a wedding, a summer party or you would just like to decorate your house. Perhaps you just want to spend the day surrounded by sweet smelling flowers!

Susanna demonstrates a variety of ideas, that always amaze, then everyone has the opportunity to create an arrangement to take home after the class. Everything is provided and included in the cost of the day, which is £75. A light lunch is also included.

The class runs from 9.45am - 2pm. For bookings please call me on 01635 44850.

A French Scene - Watercolour

We had a very intense day creating our French Market Scene on Friday, all artists had been on a Treetops Watercolour class before, so Claire seemed keen to stretch us that little bit further!

We spent quite a while sketching our scene, whether we wanted parasols, menu boards, plants, and discussed the characters sitting around the table, it really helped us to create a picture that had a possibility to be brought alive by paints later on.

I made lunch with a french influence, we had Chicken Chasseur and a delicious French Tart.

Recipe:

Roll out a rectangular piece of puff pastry, before placing it on a lined baking tray sprinkle some demerara sugar onto the lining. Lay out the pastry, sprinkle a little semolina over the pastry (this will help absorb excess juices) and position thinly sliced apples over the pastry (I used large coxes). Leave a 2-3cm border around the edge.

Sprinkle caster sugar or vanilla sugar over the top, if you don't have vanilla sugar you can sprinkle some drops of vanilla extract over the apples. Dot some small pieces of butter across the tart before you put it into a hot oven. It will take about 15-20 minutes. Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche or vanilla ice cream.

Below you can see the finished painting from the above sketch, amazing work in just a few hours!

There are a few places left on our Simply Venice class on Tuesday 16 March.