Toastie

For dinner I made a toasted Quorn Roast Chicken mayo & cheese toastie, with poached egg salad.

 

 The toasties on the grill.

Salad made with lettuce, cucumber, grated carrot, cherry tomatoes, shaved courgette and vinaigrette dressing.

Winter

My mum made bread rolls filled with camembert today for dinner (I don't have the recipe unfortunately) - yum!

We bought a christmas tree from B&Q (artificial) and wanted to try it out. It's really lovely because some of the branches are like 'Scott's Pine'. (like pinecone leaves). And the lights are from John Lewis.

And we had our first log fire of the year :)

Models Own

I recently bought some new models own make up which I have never tried before, and it arrived today!
I got

• beetle juice nail varnish in aqua violet (left)
• beetle juice nail varnish in purple blue (right)
• vintage pink nail polish (centre)
• black kohl eyeliner pencil

I just tried the aqua violet nail polish but it doesn't come up very well in the photo. Looks really nice irl though. It's quite glittery but not tacky and it shimmers just like a beetle's wing!
I really like the packaging that they use and I will definately be getting more make up from them.
Finally there was an offer buy 3 get £3 off for the nail varnish and the eye liner was free as it was my first purchase. So I saved £8 overall!

Birthday card

It's my friends birthday next week and I wanted to make her a nice personal card instead of a generic shop bought one. So I cross stitched this :)

Oatcakes

• 225g medium oatmeal
• 1/2 tsp sea salt flakes
• a good pinch of baking powder (optional, but I used)
• 25g dripping, bacon fat, lard or butter (I used butter)
• 85ml-125ml boiling water (but I used a little bit more)

A baking tray, greased or lined

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. Combine the oatmeal, salt and baking powder, then stir in the butter with a round bladed knife.
3. Slowly add enough water to make a dough, whilst stirring.
4. Knead for 30 seconds, adding more water if necessary to make a firm, but not sticky, dough.
5. Roll out to 0.5cm thickness.
6. Cut out shapes (I made triangles but you could use a cutter and make any shape you like).
7. Arrange on the baking tray and bake for 20 minutes.

("Great British Book of Baking")

Matcha Shortbread

Recipe here...

Mark's Sticky Marmalade Tea Cake

Not many of you probably remember Mark from Great British Bake Off series 1... but he made a marmalade tea loaf which sunk in the middle. So I decided to try and make it!

•  225g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground mixed spice
• 175g soft light brown muscovado sugar
• 100g chopped mixed nuts (I used brazil nuts and almonds)
• 175g unsalted butter, very soft
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 140g marmalade

900g loaf tin, greased or a 20cm round cake tin like I used.

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, ginger and mixed spice into a bowl and stir in the sugar and nuts.
3. Add the butter and eggs, and all but 1 tbsp of the marmalade. 
4. Mix well (this requires A LOT of elbow grease, trust me!).
5. Spoon the mixture into the tin and spread evenly.
6. Bake for 40 minutes then cover with foil and bake for another 20 minutes. 
7. Leave to cool. Meanwhile, warm the marmalade with a couple of tsp of water and brush over the loaf.

 ("Great British Book of Baking")