Sunday Brunch - Croissants

There is nothing nicer than a spot of Sunday brunch and what better yummier thing to eat than homemade croissants and here is how you do it!

Ingredients  

Hazlenuts
Nutella
Jus-Roll Croissant dough
Raspberries (to serve)

Pre-heat your oven to 180C/350F and pull the can open becaus, lets face it, cheating is the best way to 'make' pastry. 

Unroll your dough and separate out along the dotted lines so you have 6 triangles. 

Scoop out a teaspoon of Nutella and smear it on the base of the triangle (pointy bit away from you). 

 
Sprinkle with nuts and roll. 

  
Until you're left with a 6 fat little croissant.  

Put them into the oven for 10-15mins and when they are golden brown whip them out and gobble them all up. 

They are really lovely with raspberries on the side and a steaming cup of tea. Remember to eat up all the crumbs :)

xxx

April Favourites

This month has been full of sunshine and happiness and lots of favourite things.

Let's start this off on a happy music tone!

Music

Starting off with my favourite album. I have been enjoying Pharrell's new album for a couple of months now. All the tracks are happy, upbeat and bouncy and is the perfect album to dance along to. My favourite song off the album has to be 'Hunter' or 'Brand New' ft Justin Timberlake.

My new favourite song is 'Stay High' by Tove Lo and Hippie Sabotage, check out both the Habits remix and the original.

Books

I read Wool and Shift last month but had to take a break to read my Uni books which killed me as I couldn't wait to start Dust. If you haven't read the Wool series make sure these get bumped up your reading list as they are brilliant. The story is set in a post apocolyptic future where the world outside is unhospitable and a few hundered humans survive in a community exists in a giant underground silo.

To live, you must follow the rules. But some don't and their punishment is simple and deadly. They are allowed outside.

They keep you guessing from start to finish and I wish there was a 4th!
 

Food/Drink

Bit of a boozy one this month but I just need to say it. I'm slightly addicted (dont tell my doctor) to Strongbow's new Citrus Edge cider. With it's matt finish can and it's lemon and lime taste it is literally yum in a can. I can't even. I want one now. How many units are you allowed a day?

 Please drink responsibly.
Life
I don't normally do 'Life' favourites but what with the weather changing and the sun shining there have been a few things that I have been loving. 

Hanging washing

It sounds so simple but I honestly don't care how much 'Fresh Sheet' fabric conditioner you use you are never going to get the same fresh, clean smell that you get from hanging your washing outside. 

Gardening

I am not a gardener. I hate worms and I hate bugs. However my friends were very kind and gave me all sorts of gardening equipment for my birthday so I could sort out my jungle of a garden. Now I have chopped back trees, planted herbs and made friends with the wildlife. I'm learning!

Home

Another birthday present! (I was spoilt this year!) I was given this adorable recipe box for all the lovely ideas and recipes that I want to jot down. The box is from Wilkinsons - they have a brilliant home range department at the moment and I want everything from there!

I have wanted a cookbook stand FOREVER. I just hadn't got round to ordering one but the other day I thought enough is enough and went on the hunt. This simple cream Colonial Home Cook Book Stand was from Amazon and holds the pages back perfectly although when not in use I just like to keep my prettiest cookbook on it.

Fashion

You know me I can't go 10 minutes without buying new clothes and so here are two of the favourites from the month. They both have a real spring like feel to them and I am finally appreciating the midi - which my mother will be happy to hear as she's been telling me for years that they suit me best. I've been wearing the skirt with a black cami top and black heels and I love that it sits on the smallest part of my waist and shows off my calves. 

 Dorothy Perkins - Blush Textured Pleated Midi - £20 

NB: They only stock this skirt in a size 20 and 16 now but Dorothy Perkins have loads more Midi Skirts instore, including this one in black

This grey floral dress just makes me happy inside because it combines all my loves: grey, floral and a longer sleeve. It is quite short so I have been wearing it with thicker tights but for those more daring then me bare legs would be fine.

H&M - Grey floral jersey dress - £9.99

There we have it! My April favourites. Sorry about missing March, apparently I didn't like a damned thing. Let me know in the comments anything you have been loving with all of your heart.

xxx

Lime and Coconut Icecream - Recipe

Put the lime in the coconut and drink 'em both up......

Oh yes - it's that time of year when the sun is finally coming out and we all think that it's summer!

This recipe is quick to whip up and only takes 4 ingredients. The hardest part is being patient while it freezes but you could be supping on Pimms and gobbling burgers straight off the BBQ during this time.

Ingredients
2 Limes (the picture below shows 3 but I found it was very limey so 2 will do just fine. Unless you like limes then crack on!)
120g caster sugar
400ml carton of coconut milk
300ml carton of double cream

Method to the madness

Grate your limes so you have lots of lovely smelling zest

Put all the ingredients into a pan and heat (yes I know - bloody mental!) for a couple of minutes until all the sugar is disolved. Allow to cool. 

Once the mixture is cool pour it into a decent sized tupperware or old icecream tub (the mixture will expand as it freezes) and pop in the freezer.

Remove from the freezer after an hour and mix it all together using a whisk. When it’s fairly smooth, return to the freezer for a further hour, whisk and then for a final time you need to put it back in the fridge for an hour. After that 3rd hour is up your icecream will be ready. I left mine in overnight just to make sure it was set but there really was no need!

Serve with some lime wedges to make you look like you know something about presentation.

xxx

Wine & Cheese & Quiz night

Last weekend Leigh and I hosted our first (of many I hope) Wine, Cheese and Quiz night. I had been given a couple of quiz books for my Birthday and as a group of friends we do rather enjoy a quiz. We asked everyone to B.Y.O.C and they all stepped up their game and in the end we had 17 cheeses! We actually ended up with a couple of doubled up cheeses which was fine by me.

Leigh and I provided crisps, dips, quiche, bread, pickled onions and 2 melted Camemberts and then we were provided with a large loaf of tiger bread, baguettes, grapes, Port sault, Caerphilly, Brie, Wensleydale with cranberry, Smoked cheese, Edam, Cheddar with garlic and chive, Smoked sausage cheese, and Boursin.

We all tucked in, with the Cheddar being the surprising favourite and the melted Camemberts not far behind that. We managed to polish off both. In fact we managed to eat practically all of the cheese and drank all of the wine that had been bought along for the occasion too, although I have a distinct lack of wine glasses as they keep smashing so I gave my remaining wine glasses to my guests and I drank my wine out of a mug!

We left the cheese on the sideboard whilst we played several quiz rounds. We had some incredible cheese themed team names, such as, 'Your team may be Gouda, but this one is Feta' and 'I used to work as a cheesemonger, but I camembert it any longer', and they got more creative the more wine that was consumed.  We also kept stopping every so often to nibble at a little bit more cheese, it's quite addictive! I wish I had got more pictures but to tell you the truth it all went so quickly it was quite impossible to.

Say Cheese!

We sent everyone home at around 1am, wishing them all very pleasant cheese filled dreams.

xxx

My Birthday!

As usual I like it best when my birthday is spread out over as many days as possible and this year has been no acception to that. Normally in the 6 months up to my birthday it is all I can go on about but this year I have been strangley quiet about the whole affair. This might have something to do with the fact that I have no entered in to the slow and steady 30's hill and the only way is down. No more can I say I am in my early or even mid twenties. I am 26. Oh the horror!

Now that I've added just a hint of melodrama to the post I can continue. This year I decided to join forces with another friend of mine who is also on the slippery slope and we chose the Monopoly Pub Crawl as the best place to begin. As my birthday was on a Monday and his on a Tuesday we decided to do it the Saturday before, inviting about 80 people and knowing that only 10 where going to turn up at best.

If you havent ever done the Monopoly Pub Crawl it really is great fun. This was the second time that I have attempted it, making your way round 26 pubs from 10.30am - midnight and drinking 13 pints (you have half pints at each pub) this is not a challenge for the faint hearted. Its almost impossible to keep to the time limits and last time we made it round 20 of the 26, feeling satisfied with out attempt. This year we wanted to try and beat our previous record however.

You can download the route here (we went for the quickest way, not the in-order of the board way). It's such a good experience but you do have to be prepared to move quickly, you can't really sit around or you wont make it round. Rather than bore you with the repetition of - we went to a pub, we had a half pint, we moved on - here are some fun pictures of the day!

We made it round 21 pubs in the end and went and got a chinese at 12.30am to celebrate!

***

On my actual birthday I woke up relatively early and opened all my presents :) My parent's got me a digital photo frame and some kitchen ceramics. My wonderful boyfriend bought me this gorgeous necklace which creates little rainbows if it catches in the sun and its just perfect.

I took the day off work as I think its the one day that I shouldn't have to work but as luck would have it the rain decided that it was a good time to show up and so my previous plan of a picnic went out of the window. Instead we spent a couple of hours uploading pictures on to the new photo frame before moving on to the very important baking of the birthday cupcakes. If you are a avid reader of my blog you will know how much I love to bake but I decided it was my birthday and I was going to be lazy so they were made courtsey of our good friend Betty Crocker.

Once they were iced and had cooled we packed some up and headed into town and Oxford Street so I could do a little bit of shopping before Leigh took me out for dinner at a yummy pizza place called Pizza Pilgrims. They serve wine in big carafes and I had a black pepper salmi pizza and Leigh had spicy sausage.

After that we went to go and meet my close friends for a few drinks, blowing out of a tealight (nobody had candles!) and general merrymaking. It was quite lovely.

Thank you to everyone who celebrated with me one way or another, and to the woman at the pub who ID'd me on my birthday so I got to hand it over with a "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY" cry. Also thank you for thinking I look young enough to get ID'd, you made my night.

xxx

Back to School

I've been meaning to sit down and write this post for 2 weeks but I have just been so busy that I haven't had a spare moment to!

My first 2 weeks at the school have just flown by and I already know that I am going to love it here. Everybody is just so friendly and even from the first moment I walked in it was all smiles and happy faces so I felt at home right away.

The first couple of weeks have been incredibly tiring. I forgot how much it takes out of you trying to learn a new environment, information and people. Especially as I had been doing the same job for 3 years and this is completely different.

Being back in a school is such a bizzare feeling, it reminds me so much of when I was in school and as it's all girls I can relate having been a student in an all girls too. I started thinking to myself when I was standing doing lunch duty (!) 'Do these girls think that I'm old?' The school has a sixth form so the oldest girls are 18 and I was thinking - 'I wasn't 18 that long ago!' and then I realised it was 8 years ago and yes they probably were all looking at me thinking I was a grown up. I might have to admit to myself that I am.

There is so much to learn here and there are so many exciting events which I get to be a part of and help organise such as a garden party happening in a few months. My hours are also quite flexiable so if I need to come in early I can leave early as well, although I have not enjoyed getting up at 6 to be in work for 8. After all my protesting it turns out that actually everyone was right and the journey is a bit of a bitch.

I get praised for everything as well, I'd forgotten that you are actually so much more inclined to work hard if you are being told that you are doing a great job. My manager is so enthusiatic about everything which matches my personality and I think we are going to have a happy little hub of an office.

I have already made some new friends, I think going out for a recent work drinks might have helped with that! This is brilliant for me because I love meeting new people and that's what I have to do every day in this role as I greet parents and show them around the school.

I think I am going to be very happy here indeed!

Cara x