Taking a well-earned rest by the fountain in the village square (Cerdanya, Catalunya).
Moments that matter… brought to you by Inntravel, the Slow Holiday people
Anna Potter's Instagram picks
Anna Potter is the founder of Swallows and Damsons, a Sheffield flower shop that's a treasure trove of natural, seasonal flowers, rustic posts and curiosities.
Anna describes her day in cups of tea on page 58 of June's The Simple Things, saying her favourite way to switch off is to head to Instagram.
"I dive into my Instagram world and immerse myself in the most beautiful flower feeds and inspiration."
Follow Anna's Instagram account at @swallowsanddamsons for more of her beautifully blowsy blooms (above) and dramatic vignettes (below).
Anna's favourite Instagram florists are @putnamflowers (above) and @saipua (below), both based in New York.
Anna also loves bloggers' favourite, @designsponge (below) - it's easy to see why.
If you don't already, head over to Instagram and follow @simplethingsmag for snaps from your favourite magazine.
June's The Simple Things is available from all good newsagents, supermarkets and our official online store. Sold out? Download it from Apple Newsstand or subscribe now.
How to mix the perfect gin and tonic
Gin-lovers of the world rejoice as World Gin Day returns for its seventh year on Saturday 13 June 2015! Learn how to mix the perfect gin and tonic with our expert guide.
A warm summer's evening calls for this most British of aperitifs. We asked the experts at The Gin Garden how to mix one like a pro.
The gin
Some gins are dry, some floral, some citrussy. To establish your favourite, sample a nip, neat. A good traditional gin is No 3 London Dry Gin: its juniper, balanced with sweet orange, grapefruit and cardamom, marries well with a range of tonics.
The tonic
Buy it in the smallest bottles/cans you can find, to maintain fizz. Fever-Tree is an excellent low-sugar option; Fentimans has a distinctively citrus flavour. Waitrose's own-brand tonic has won several 'blind' taste tests.
How much?
Ratio is a personal thing, some prefer 1:2, others, 1:3. We prefer 1:3 - say 50ml of gin to 150ml of tonic water.
Ice matters
Keep ice trays in zip lock bags so that your cubes don't pick up any freezer odours. Look out for an ice tray that will give you bigger cubes - they melt more slowly.
A chilled glass
Keeps your drink as cool as possible for as long as possible. Serve the Spanish way, in big balloon glasses (or red wine glasses), to let the aroma of your gin blossom.
And to finish
Add a citrus twist: using a peeler or sharp knife, shave a thumb-sized strip of rind off a lemon or lime (avoiding the pith), then squeeze, shiny side down, onto the drink to release the oils before plopping it in.
More cocktail recipes to wet your whistle.
June's The Simple Things is available from all good newsagents, supermarkets and our official online store. Sold out? Download it from Apple Newsstand or subscribe now.
FREE! My City guides
In each issue of The Simple Things we publish a local’s insider guide to some of the coolest, most interesting and simply favourite cities to visit. As the summer holiday begins, we’re releasing one online each week in association with our friends at Inntravel – The slow holiday people
This week it’s Paris. Download Nichole Robertson’s guide here
This guide was first published in May 2013 - issue 9*
Did you miss Copenhagen, Florence, Amsterdam or Marrakech? They’re still available to download.
Coming soon!
18 June - Helsinki
25 June – Berlin
2 July – Palma
We'll post on our Twitter and Facebook when they are published.
* Since this guide was published The Kooka Boora café is now called KB Café and Nichole’s favourite store, A l’Etoile d’Or, a chocolate shop, has closed (the building collapsed in 2014 after a spectacular gas explosion).
MY CITY is supported by INNTRAVEL, the Slow Holiday people, who have spent the last three decades exploring Europe’s most beautiful corners along the lesser-trodden path. When it comes to cities, their self-guided walking tours have been carefully researched using their own expert knowledge and insider tips from locals. These specially created routes take in the best-known sights, but also those hidden gems that others miss. Find out more by visiting http://www.inntravel.co.uk
Event: GROW London and ticket offer
Join The Simple Things at GROW London and take advantage of our half price ticket offer.
Taking place 19-21 June 2015, GROW London is an inspiring day out bursting with ideas on how to transform your outside space, no matter how large or small. 100 exhibitors will be offering an unrivalled selection of contemporary and classic garden furniture, rare and hard-to-find plants and flowers from some of the country’s finest nurseries, and a tempting edit of fine garden sculpture, covetable pots, planters, accessories and tools, as well as consultations with experts from the Society of Garden Designers.
We’ve teamed up with GROW London to offer you half price entry to this year’s fair. Use the code SIMPLETHINGS online at www.growlondon.com to enjoy half price access to the fair, 19-21 June 2015.
Photography by Kirstie Young
Recipe: Gooseberry and honey cake
Lia Leendertz loves a summery cake dotted with whatever fruit is in season at the allotment. This one is fragrant with gooseberries, honey, lemon and elderflower, and is the ultimate cake for afternoon tea on the lawn. Because of the fresh fruit content this is not a cake that ages well: you’ll need to finish it off within a few days. Tricky...
Gooseberry and honey cake
100g gooseberries, washed, topped and tailed
225g butter
225g ground almonds
2tsp baking powder
4tbsp honey
3 eggs
2 tbsp elderflower cordial
zest of one lemon
Equipment:
20cm cake tin
1 Heat the oven to 170C/Fan 150/325F.
2 Line the base and sides of the tin with baking parchment.
3 Firstly, the butter needs to be very soft (see below for a short cut – there isn’t always time to get it out of the fridge in advance).
4 Put all the ingredients bar the gooseberries into a large bowl and mix together, ideally with an electric whisk or in a food processor, until the mixture is fluffy and light.
5 Add the gooseberries and fold in by hand until they are well distributed.
6 Smooth the mixture into the tin and bake on a middle-to-low shelf for about an hour, until a skewer pushed into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
7 Leave to rest in the tin for 10 mins before placing onto a rack to cool.
8 Serve with a dollop of crème fraîche, if you like, and a pot of EarlGrey.
LIA'S TIP TO SOFTEN BUTTER
My kitchen is naturally cool and my butter never really gets soft enough for easy creaming. But I have a trick. I fill a bowl with lukewarm water
– just slightly warmer than hand temperature, but no more or it will melt – then cut the butter into chunks and drop it in. I leave it to
sit for about five minutes, then drain off the water and tip the butter into my mixing bowl, as soft as can be.
This recipe is featured in June's The Simple Things. You can buy print editions from our online store, download it from Apple Newsstand or subscribe.
Want more cake recipes? Type cake into the search box and we defy you not to drool...
Competition: Win a Gaggia Baby Class Coffee Machine with Betta Living!
For those of you who love nothing more than enjoying a cup of coffee in your kitchen each morning, we’re offering you the chance to win your very own Gaggia Baby Class coffee machine - courtesy of Betta Living - worth £350.
The art of coffee making is becoming increasingly popular and having the ability to create your favourite flat white or cappuccino in the comfort of your own home is even better.
Your coffee kitchen personality
A Betta Living kitchen provides the perfect backdrop for a morning coffee; sipping a latte within the rustic charms of an arts and crafts kitchen, its romantic style and vintage themed interior making for an ideal afternoon in.
If you can’t get through the day without an espresso moment then a more contemporary setting can be found in the form of a New York style kitchen, with all the gloss and glamour of being in the city that never sleeps.
Italian heritage can be found within a Cranford charcoal and chalk mix; just like a cappuccino, this kitchen incorporates classic style with a sprinkle of modernity for a delightful weekend brunch with all the family.
Closing date: Sunday 5 July, 23.59pm
June's The Simple Things is available from all good newsagents, supermarkets and our official online store. Sold out? Download it from Apple Newsstand or subscribe now.
FREE! My City Guides
In each issue of The Simple Things we publish a local’s insider guide to some of the coolest, most interesting and simply favourite cities to visit. As the summer holiday season begins, we’re releasing one online each week in association with our friends at Inntravel – The slow holiday people
This week it’s Marrakech. Download Maryam Montague’s guide for free here
This guide was first published in November 2013 - issue 16.
Did you miss Copenhagen, Florence or Amsterdam?
Coming soon!
11 June - Paris
18 June - Helsinki
25 June – Berlin
2 July – Palma
We'll post on our Twitter and Facebook when they are published.
MY CITY is supported by INNTRAVEL, the Slow Holiday people, who have spent the last three decades exploring Europe’s most beautiful corners along the lesser-trodden path. When it comes to cities, their self-guided walking tours have been carefully researched using their own expert knowledge and insider tips from locals. These specially created routes take in the best-known sights, but also those hidden gems that others miss. Find out more by visiting http://www.inntravel.co.uk
Photography by Catherine Gratwicke.
Make: Homemade reed diffuser
The roots of homespun alchemy lie in the play of childhood – sneaking bits and pieces from the garden and mixing them in jam jars, hoping for a magical scent. This kind of experimentation is no less fun as an adult, but with these recipes from Rachelle Blondel, author of Forgotten Ways for Modern Days, you’ll get far more satisfying results. Harnessing the natural power of the likes of beeswax, nuts, seeds and rosewater, these are great weekend projects that will reward you – or, in the case of the perfume, perhaps someone else – with some gentle, natural pampering throughout the working week.
To make a reed diffuser you will need:
5-6 thin bamboo skewers
50ml surgical spirit
50ml light oil (grapeseed, sweet almond or light olive oil)
Narrow-necked vase or bottle
30-40 drops of your favourite essential oil or blend
1 Remove the pointed ends of the wooden skewers with a pair of sharp scissors and put them to one side.
2 Place the surgical spirit and oil into the vase or bottle and swirl around to mix the two.
3 Add the essential oils and swirl again.
4 Place as many skewers into the bottle as will fit, but don’t over-fill as the skewers will need space to release the fragrance.
5 Leave for several hours, swirling the liquid every now and again, then flip the skewers so that the dry ends are in the liquid.
6 You can repeat the previous step until the wood is completely saturated with the oil and then flip the skewers every couple of days to keep the fragrance wafting. The volume of oil and surgical spirit can be increased according to the size of your vase or bottle, but keep the ratio 1:1. Essential oils can be added at 10 drops to 100ml of base oil: experiment with this volume for a stronger or weaker fragrance.
Taken from Forgotten ways for Modern Days: Kitchen cures and household lore for a natural home and garden by Rachelle Blondel (Kyle Books, £14.99). Photography by Catherine Gratwicke.
There are more homemade projects in June’s The Simple Things, available from all good newsagents, supermarkets and our official online store. Sold out? Download it from Apple Newsstand or subscribe now.
Moments that matter
Savouring lunch with a view – amid the clear mountain air of Switzerland’s Engadine Valley.
Moments that matter… brought to you by Inntravel, the Slow Holiday people
FREE! My City guides
In each issue of The Simple Things we publish a local’s insider guide to some of the coolest, most interesting and simply favourite cities to visit. As the summer holiday season begins, we’re releasing one online each week in association with our friends at Inntravel – The slow holiday people
This week it’s Amsterdam. Download John Bezold’s guide for free here.
Did you miss Copenhagen or Florence?
This guide was first published in November 2012.
Coming soon!
4 June - Marrakech
11 June - Paris
18 June - Helsinki
25 June – Berlin
2 July – Palma
We'll post on our Twitter and Facebook when they are published.
MY CITY is supported by INNTRAVEL, the Slow Holiday people, who have spent the last three decades exploring Europe’s most beautiful corners along the lesser-trodden path. When it comes to cities, their self-guided walking tours have been carefully researched using their own expert knowledge and insider tips from locals. These specially created routes take in the best-known sights, but also those hidden gems that others miss. Find out more by visiting www.inntravel.co.uk
Magical: June cover reveal
The night is young, the stars are old. Tell us a story, gathered around the fire, with the scent of the night garden all around. Will it be a fairy tale, folklore or a bedtime story? An observation from nature, perhaps. Or we could just talk till dawn and watch the midsummer sun rise over a meadow. The day stretches ahead, full of possibilities; Wimbledon and strawberries, cake and lollies. Summer is sure to make you smile. Summer means there’s always time for The Simple Things.
June's The Simple Things is out today - buy, download or subscribe now.
Photograph: Kim Lightbody
Recipes: Wild cocktails for warm midsummer evenings part two
Rose Petal Syrup (for the Chelsea Fringe Collins cocktail)
Makes approximately 750ml
6 handfuls pink and/or red rose petals
1.2kg caster sugar
750ml water
Zest of half an unwaxed, organic orange
1 tbsp lemon juice
Pinch of salt
Equipment
Sealable presentation bottles, sterilized
1 Snip off the bitter white tip at the base of each petal. Or, when picking the petals from the rosebush, pull them in a clump with one hand and snip the base off in one go with the other.
2 Loosely pack the petals in a nonreactive bowl and add about 400g of the sugar. Gently massage it into the petals to bruise them and start the maceration. Cover with a clean dishtowel and leave overnight or for up to 12 hours.
3 You should return to a gooey mess; the petals have shrunk and the sugar has extracted some colour and flavour from them. Tip the mixture into a non-stick pan and add the remaining sugar, water, orange zest, lemon juice and a pinch of salt, and gently bring to a boil. The colour should transfer from the petals into the liquid. Simmer for 5 mins or until you have a thick, unctuous syrup.
4 Let the syrup cool. Strain it into a wide-mouthed pitcher, then funnel into the sterilized presentation bottles and seal. You can store it in the fridge for well over a month. As this is a rich simple syrup, you need only very small quantities in your sodas and cocktails.
Honeysuckle Syrup (for the Honeysuckle cocktail)
Makes approximately 500ml
8 large handfuls of unsprayed honeysuckle flowers, leaves and stems removed
400g caster sugar*
Juice of half a lemon
Equipment
Sealable presentation bottles, sterilized
1 Place the honeysuckle flowers in a non-stick bowl and cover with cold water, then leave to steep for 12 hours, or at least overnight, at room temperature. Make sure the flowers are completely covered by the water.
2 Strain the mixture into a measuring cup, discarding the flowers. Pour the liquid into a non-stick pan.
3 Measure an equal amount of sugar to the liquid and add to the pan.
4 Bring to a boil, and simmer for 5 mins.
5 Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
6 Add the lemon juice and funnel into the sterilized presentation bottles.
*Feel free to replace half the sugar with a handful of chopped sweet cicely leaves, but bear in mind that this will adjust the colour
Rowan, Honey and Lemon Foam (for the Honeysuckle Cocktail)
Makes enough foam for 15 drinks
1½ sheets gelatin (platinum grade)
60ml runny honey
60ml Rowan Syrup*
60ml lemon juice
180ml hot water
120ml pasteurized egg whites
Wild honeysuckle blossom
Equipment
Professional cream whipper with 2 N2O cartridges
1 Place the gelatin sheets in a bowl of iced water and soak them until they are pliable (about 10 mins).
2 Meanwhile, combine the honey, rowan syrup, lemon juice and hot water in a non-stick pan over a very low heat, until the honey is dissolved. Strain using a fine-mesh sieve into a clean pan.
3 Squeeze the excess water from the softened gelatin sheets. Drop the sheets into the pan containing the mix and heat gently to dissolve the gelatin. Stir constantly and do not allow to reach boiling point.
4 Turn off the heat as soon as the gelatin is dissolved. Let cool to room temperature (should take about 15 mins).
5 Place the egg whites in a bowl and lightly whisk until slightly frothy and pour into the pan.
6 Funnel this liquid into the whipper. Charge it with the 2 N2O cartridges, following the manufacturer’s instructions. Shake well for at least a minute and refrigerate.
7 Let the foam stabilize for a minimum of 2 hours, preferably overnight, before using.
8 Shake the whipper well before dispensing. Tip it upside down so that it is completely inverted over the cocktail. Let the foam settle for 20 seconds before garnishing with wild honeysuckle blossom.
*Rowan Syrup (for the Rowan, Honey and Lemon Foam, to go in the Honeysuckle cocktail)
Makes approximately 1 litre
1kg very ripe, bright red rowan berries
Approximately 2 litres water
1 heaped tsp salt
700g caster sugar
Equipment
Sealable presentation bottles, sterilized
Large jelly bag or muslin
1 Separate the rowan berries from their stalks, then wash and rinse the berries. Add to a non-stick pan and pour in about 1 litre of water and the salt, making sure the berries are covered.
2 Bring to a boil and simmer long enough for them to become soft (about 25 mins). Remove from the heat.
3 Using the jelly bag/muslin, slowly strain the berries and liquid into a wide-mouthed pitcher.
4 Return the pulp to the pan and add the remaining 1 litre of water. Bring to a boil, then remove from the heat.
5 Strain the pulp, as above, into the pitcher.
6 Return all the strained liquid to the cleaned pan, add the sugar, bring to a boil, and boil hard for 5 mins. Remove from the heat.
7 Funnel the syrup into the presentation bottles while still piping hot. Seal. 8 Store in a cool, dark place. Once opened, keep in the fridge and use within a month.
Cocktail recipes from Wild Cocktails from the Midnight Apothecary by Lottie Muir (CICO Books, £16.99). Over 100 recipes using home-grown and foraged fruits, herbs and edible flowers. www.thecocktailgardener.co.uk
Life in colour: FREE colouring card download
Grown-up colouring is having something of a moment; colouring books for adults are currently rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mary Berry in the bestseller charts and this month, The School of Life and the Tate launch a range of eight grown-up colouring posters. Colouring is an absorbing activity that forces you to focus – an alternative to mind-numbing flicking from electronic screen to screen.
Download our free design now, and ready those pencils, felt-tips and crayons. And – you know what? – we really don’t mind if you go over the lines.
Share your coloured-in design with us via Twitter or Instagram – use the hashtag #simplecolouring and we’ll show-and-tell our favourites. And in the next issue you can see how some talented designer-maker types did it, as we feature their designs.
Want more colouring cards?
Buy June's issue of The Simple Things and get a set of colouring cards free.
READER OFFER
Mindful colouring needs mindful pencils. Those nice people at The School of Life are offering readers 20% off their ‘The Psychology of Colour’ pencil set (usually £18). Along with musical notes and the letters of the alphabet, colours provide the building blocks of our emotions. An accompanying booklet reveals your inner qualities through colour preference (red: adventurous, witty, a little heartless?) and each pencil is stamped with a defining characteristic (Violet: ambiguity; Light blue: clarity). You get the gist. Use the code ‘SIMPLE’ at www.theschooloflife.com/shop
Offer closes 24 June.
If you get the colouring-in bug you can buy The Mindfulness Colouring Book (pictured left, Boxtree, £7.99).
June's The Simple Things is available from all good newsagents, supermarkets and our official online store. Sold out? Download it from Apple Newsstand or subscribe now.
Music: Here comes the new folk
Although the vernacular music of England has always been around, many of us have been distracted by the pleasures of pop music and put off folk music by witnessing middle-aged men in pubs singing through their noses. Which is a shame as traditional folk songs, with songs covering a variety of subjects including yearning maidens, laments, farewells, daring lassies, murders, drowned sailors and blowing winds, offer much in terms of storytelling and social history.
Thankfully, contemporary musicians including Northumbrian sisters The Unthanks have hauled it back into our consciousness by recording old songs as well as writing their own. Many others have picked up the folk baton with sub- genres including ‘alt-folk’, ‘psych-folk’ and ‘nu-folk’ springing up.
Download our Spotify playlist for a selection of our favourite new folk, including Lady Maisery, Telling the Bees, Mad Magdelen, The Black Feathers and the Hare and the Moon.
FIND OUT MORE
Bright Young Folk is a compendium of interviews, reviews, directories and listings of traditional British folk music artists.
HAVE A GO
If you fancy singing a few traditional ballads, join a folk choir, now growing in popularity. The Great Sea Choir in Bristol welcomes singers of all ages without an audition. The Morris Choir in London is fairly full but welcomes those who can sing, play a fiddle or bang a bodhran.
Turn to page 91 of June's The Simple Things for a run-down of dance, craft and folk traditions through the year.
Words: Clare Gogerty
Illustration: Alice Patullo
Ideas: Smile in portraiture
Why do we so seldom see people smiling in painted portraits? It’s a lot about how we want to be viewed, says Nicholas Jeeves.
Today when someone points a camera at us, we smile. Such are our expectations of a portrait. But, as a walk around any art gallery reveals, the open smile has been largely, as it were, frowned upon.
It’s commonly thought that for centuries people didn’t smile in pictures because their teeth were awful. This is not true – bad teeth were so common that this was not seen as necessarily detracting from a person’s attractiveness. Lord Palmerston, Queen Victoria’s Whig prime minister, was described as being devastatingly good-looking, despite having a number of prominent teeth missing due to hunting accidents. Nonetheless, both painters and sitters did have a number of good reasons for being disinclined to encourage the smile. The primary reason? It’s hard to do. In the few examples we have of smiles in formal portraiture, the effect is often not very pleasing, and we can still see this today. When a camera is produced, we perform gamely. But should the process take too long, our smiles become grimaces. A smile is like a blush – a response, not an expression, and it can neither be easily maintained nor recorded.
Turn to page 96 of June's The Simple Things for more,
A longer version of this article was originally published as ‘The Serious and The Smirk: The Smile in Portraiture’ in The Public Domain Review under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
If you wish to reuse it please see: http://publicdomainreview.org/legal/
10 Wildflowers to spot in June
A gorgeous little pink orchid that, as its name suggests, looks as though a bee has landed on its petals for a quick snack. Usually found on dry, grassy slopes with poor soil, they can also be spotted on roadsides and industrial estates.
Keep a look out in shady woodland areas where bluebells have finished flowering, and on rural roadside verges to catch a glimpse of this pretty deep pink flower. Known as ‘Bachelor’s buttons’, it is thought it used to be worn as a buttonhole by unmarried men.
3. Sea Campion, Silene uniflora
The perfect plant to track down on coastal walks, you’ll spot this white-flowered, waxy-leaved plant on cliffs, shingles and sand dunes from May to July.
4. Birds Foot Trefoil, Lotus corniculatus
A member of the pea family, this low-growing plant has the best collection of common names, which include ‘Granny’s Toenails’, ‘Eggs and Bacon’ and ‘Hens and Chickens’. Whatever you call it, you’ll find it in grassy spots like lawns, verges and heathlands.
5. Cow Parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris
These frothy white umbellifers are ubiquitous on country verges in summer. Also called wild chervil, this is an edible herb, but be careful when foraging for it as it looks much like many other umbellifers that are poisonous, like Fool’s Parsley and worse, Hemlock. Perhaps play it safe side and pick bunches of it to fill vases instead.
6. Ox-eye Daisy, Leucanthemum vulgar
These large flowers used to be commonly found in traditional hay meadows, gently swaying in the breeze. You’re most likely to spot them now along the edges of fields that are managed as wild meadows, grasslands and on roadsides. Also called ‘Moonflowers’, they glow as night falls.
Last chance saloon if you fancy a bit of foraging for your supper. Wild garlic makes a delicious pesto and is delectable in an omelette! Ancient woodlands are the best place to find it – look out for a cluster of white flowers atop a tall stem and strap-like leaves. Check for the garlic scent as the leaves can be mistaken for Lily of the valley, which is poisonous.
8. Black Horehound, Ballota nigra
Growing in hedgerows, fields, along paths and in wasteland since the Iron age, this perennial herb grows up to a metre tall, so should be easy to spot. Clusters of flowers are loved by bees and sit atop sepals that fuse and form a tunnel.
9. Sainfoin, Onobrychis viciifolia
A beautiful pyramid-shaped perennial herb that looks a bit like a glammed-up lupin. Widely grown as a fodder crop until the 1800’s, you’re most likely to find it in a sunny spot on grassy banks or undisturbed chalk grassland.
10. Goat’s-rue, Galega officinalis
A mini lavender-coloured sweet pea-type flower which you’re likely to see growing amongst shrubs in dappled shade on light, sandy soils, as their delicate frame benefits from the support.
Words: Cinead McTernan
Turn to page 70 of June's The Simple Things for an extract from Meadowland by John Lewis-Stempel (Black Swan, £8.99), which won the 2015 Thwaites Wainwright Prize (see page 81 for the full shortlist).
Turn to page 74 for Tania Pascoe's picks of wild flower meadows to visit. Tania Pascoe is the author of Wild Garden Weekends.
Recipe: Sunshine hash
Sunshine hash
Serves 4 very generously
Ingredients
4 sausages (take the opportunity to buy an interesting flavour from the butcher, like caramelised onion, sweet chilli or apple)
800g new potatoes, scrubbed clean
olive oil
8 rashers streaky bacon, roughly snipped or chopped
4 large ripe tomatoes, chopped, or 12 cherry tomatoes, halved
4 spring onions, chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped (optional)
salt and pepper
4 large free-range eggs
1 Cook sausages over a medium heat for about 10-12 mins, then remove from the pan and set aside. Wipe the pan with a piece of kitchen roll.
2 Chop the potatoes into small cubes. Put two tbsp olive oil into the frying pan over a low/medium heat. Cook the potatoes for about 15-20 mins until they are golden.
3 Add the bacon and cook for a further five mins.
4 Add the chopped tomatoes and cook until they just start to soften, but don’t let them go too mushy. Stir in the spring onions and garlic if using. Then add the sausages (I like to slice them thickly before adding to the pan). Season well with salt and pepper.
5 Push the hash to one side of the pan and add another tbsp oil. Crack two eggs in the space, and fry until they are cooked to your liking.
6 Divide the hash between four plates, and pop an egg on top of two of them. Return the pan to the heat and fry the remaining eggs for the last two plates.
7 Serve with ketchup and big mugs of tea.
Recipe from Pitch Up, Eat Local by Ali Ray (£16.99, AA Publishing with The Camping and Caravanning Club)
FREE! My City guides
In each issue of The Simple Things we publish a local’s insider guide to some of the coolest, most interesting and simply favourite cities to visit. As the summer holiday season begins, we’re releasing one online each week in association with our friends at Inntravel – The slow holiday people
This week it’s Florence - download food blogger Giulia Scarpaleggia's guide for free here
This article was first published in October 2013 - issue 15.
If you missed Copenhagen you can get it here.
Coming soon!
28 May - Amsterdam
4 June - Marrakech
11 June - Paris
18 June - Helsinki
25 June – Berlin
2 July – Palma
We'll post on our Twitter and Facebook when they are published.
MY CITY is supported by INNTRAVEL, the Slow Holiday people, who have spent the last three decades exploring Europe’s most beautiful corners along the lesser-trodden path. When it comes to cities, their self-guided walking tours have been carefully researched using their own expert knowledge and insider tips from locals. These specially created routes take in the best-known sights, but also those hidden gems that others miss. Find out more by visiting www.inntravel.co.uk
Competition: Win a £500 shopping spree at Great Plains (closed 30 June 2015)
Need a capsule wardrobe of modern classics for fuss-free dressing? Look no further than Great Plains' stylish separates.
Sartorial consideration is often a luxury lost in the hubbub of daily life. Who has time to style an outfit before breakfast or space to think about a change of clothes for after-hours dinners or family gatherings? Thanks to Great Plains’ versatile collections – premium designs that fulfil the demands of a modern lifestyle – you don’t have to.
The British brand sets its sights on quality and longevity, meaning collections are always on-point without feeling too trendy and fashion- forward without appearing overt. Ticking the boxes for every eventuality, tailored shift dresses and premium separates are well-considered, savvy investments, made to work for every hour, whether you’re en route to the office, dropping the kids off at school or hosting Sunday brunch.
Building a capsule wardrobe you can be confident in, day in, day out, means choosing the right pieces. Jeans that fit like a second skin, sumptuous knitwear that can be layered and loosened, basic tops, tees and skirts that can be mix and matched to reflect your own personal aesthetic – these are your fail-safe go-to pieces. For evening, embellished party dresses, feminine florals and striking prints are anchored by simple silhouettes, making them effortless to wear. The only thing to decide on is your favourites.
Great Plains is offering an exclusive 10% discount to readers of The Simple Things. Just visit www.greatplains.co.uk and enter the discount code GPTST10.
WIN A £500 SHOPPING SPREE!
Enter below by 30 June.
Iceberg Press’ full terms and conditions