From little acorns...
Welcome to the very first That Old Chestnut newsletter. On our very first outing we have news on us setting up a market stall, our Hyde and Seek giveaway and some tasty tasty recipes to fill your bellies, if you make them.
For those of you that are wondering:
That Old Chestnut is a Leeds based Art Collective that is concerned with people’s attitudes to the world around them. At the moment our work is mainly concerned with making the connection between the animal on the farm and the product on the supermarket shelf. The product on the supermarket shelf has gone through a list of processes that has disconnected it from its original form.
We work in two ways: Artwork - we
the market stall
We are currently in the process of obtaining a market stall in the outdoor section of Leeds City Market. Just picture the scene, your in town, your a bit peckish, you fancy something healthy, something sweet, something to tickle your fancy, so you come to our ‘that old chestnut’ stall where there’s many a vegan delight from left to right, now all you have to do is decide what to eat!
We’re wondering if there is anything that people would like to see for sale at our stall or if there is anything you’d like us to attempt to make, any ideas people?
Thats all for now, we will keep you updated and let you know when we are up and running!
Did you Hyde and Seek? Did you find some tasty little treats? It feels like it all happened such a long time ago, but there’s nothing wrong with reminiscing is there?! We’d like to thank everyone that came, its much appreciated, we hope you had a good day and enjoyed the food. We’ve decided not to put all our eggs in one basket just yet(haha its funny because we don’t use any!sorry elly that was bad wasn’t it), and so instead of telling you how to make all our food, we have selected a few recipes which we hope you’ll try making:
the recipes
Rosemary and Olive Flat bread.
Makes two loaves.
Ingredients:
700g plain flour,
Pinch of salt,
Pinch of caster sugar,
7g - sachet of easy-blend dried yeast,
2tsp freshly chopped rosemary (or dried),
450ml cold water,
3 tbsp olive oil,
75g black olives - roughly chopped.
To Finish:
Olive oil,
Coarse sea salt,
Freshly ground pepper.
Method:
1. Sift flour, salt and caster sugar in a large bowl. Stir in the yeast and rosemary. Make a well in the centre.
2. Pour in the water and oil and mix to a soft dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes until smooth and elastic.
3. Pat olives dry on kitchen paper, then gently knead into the dough. Put in lightly oiled bowl, cover with cling film or tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place for 1 ½ hours or until double size.
4. Turn out the dough and knead for a minute or two. Divide into half and roll out each piece to a 25 cm circle.
5. Put on oiled baking trays, cover with oiled cling film and leave to rise for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 200 degrees 15 minutes before baking.
6. Using fingertips make deep dimples in the dough. Drizzle with oil and salt.
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and risen. Cool on a wire rack. Grind on some pepper to serve.
Peanut Butter Cookies.
Makes about 10 cookies.
Ingredients:
75g margarine
75g peanut butter
50g caster sugar
50g sugar
100g flour
Pinch of salt
Method:
1. Mix together the margarine and peanut butter and stir in the sugars.
2. Stir in flour and make into a dough.
3. Shape into even sized balls and flatten with a fork.
4. Put in pre-heated oven for 15 minutes at 200 degrees.
Pizzas
The ingredients below will make 4 pizzas!
4 pizza bases
1 jar of pasta sauce
2 onions
3 peppers
5 mushrooms
1 pack of cheezly mozzarella style cheese (can be bought from Holland and Barrett and Out Of This World-opposite Corn Exchange)
Tomato paste
Method:
1.Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees.
2.Squirt some tomato paste onto each of the pizza bases and spread out evenly to about 1cm from the edge. Then put some pasta sauce on and spread that out too.
3. Dice the onions finely and sprinkle evenly onto the pizzas*
4. Finely slice the peppers and put evenly onto the pizzas.
5. Finely slice the mushrooms and put evenly on the pizzas.
6. Grate the cheese and cover the pizzas with it.
7. Bake in the oven until all the cheese had melted and the base has starting to turn golden. Then enjoy!
*depending on how flavourful you like your life to be, you could add some finely chopped garlic and herbs at this point, maybe even a sprinkle of freshly ground pepper!
the final word
Unfortunately we have nothing else. Although sometime soon we’re going to sort out a facebook group, so we can share photo’s of That Old Chestnut’s adventures and keep you updated about upcoming events and so on and so on and so on.
If anyone has any comments, feedback or ideas they’d like to share with us, then get in touch! We’d love to hear from you, even if it’s just a little hello, the email address is at the start of the newsletter(under the logo!).
Thanks for reading.
Chris and Elly - Your friends@that old chestnut