Easter Weekend

As mentioned in this post, my form like to celebrate birthdays and during this half term three of the girls turn eighteen, seeing as we would be at home revising procrastinating during half term we thought we'd celebrate, M got her presents then but A and L get their presents when we get back because their birthdays are at the end of the holiday, and any excuse to eat.

M loves caterpillar cakes, so IK made her a homemade one!

And her wonderful mother Ismini (dream) made cheese pies..

Mmm.. Cheese pies...

 

And I made some oreo, cookie and marshmallow brownies, which then were covered with party rings, chocolate buttons and smarties.

 

 

 

As you can probably tell by all the pictures, I was a little over excited about the food but the best was yet to come...

Granny T is my close friend B's grandma, she is a domestic goddess and creates the most beautiful cakes for our birthdays, especially B's, here was her creation,

 

 

 

How amazing?!

 

Then it was time for presents, M has banned herself from buying clothing since August and she's done really well, so for her birthday we got her clothes!

 

 

 

 

I got a little too overexcited about the food and actually made myself ill.

Good one Lottie.

 

Then today was the annual Woolley Easter Egg Hunt.

My sister and I are the Easter bunnies, and we hide everyones and eachother's eggs, the rules are to find your own and to leave the ones that aren't your's.

 

 

The possibly over-used hiding place, the Lindt bunny in the old rabbit hutch.

 

 

 

 

 

Hiding my sister's egg in the woodshed, it didn't take her as long to find as I had hoped expected.

 

 

I found one of my rabbits hiding under a sapling.

 

 

Grandpa always gets the hardest hiding places, one of his was hidden here...

 

 

Luckily he managed to reach it (with the help of a stick) then we all headed inside to be rewarded with roast venison and roasted vegetables followed by Steph's cheesecake filled chocolate eggs made my J and I, they were gobbled down so quickly I didn't have the chance to take a photo.

I hope you all had a great Easter!







March/ Easter Favourites

Sorry for neglecting you little bloggy, it's the last week of term before Easter and everything has been pretty hectic with coursework.
I love anything festive or seasonal, so Christmas and Easter are my favourite times (mainly because that's when all the cool food comes out) and in my opinion, one of the best things that Easter brings, along with lambs, are these bad boys,

Should these qualify as a monthly favourite? Probably not. But it's very hard for me to put into words the way I feel about mini eggs, they are just amazing! Luckily for me (unluckily for my waistline) where I work sells them around the year and as I type I am devouring this very bag.

These babies probably shouldn't be here either but I was so pleased with how they turned out (I find rocky road tricky!) that I might call in my boyfriend/assistant to do a recipe!

Oohh, they were so good!

Another thing that I associate with Easter are pastel colours. Now, I'm not really a fan of pastel green and lilac on my nails, although strangely enough I can with pale yellow and most certainly baby pink.

 

This nail polish is from Barry M in Strawberry Ice Cream/309. I find Barry M to be great for nail polishes as they are only £2.99 and they even tempt me to stray away from my usual shades of red.

 

This lipbalm by Estee Lauder was given to me by my cousins for Christmas, I blew it off as a silly lipgloss, something I rarely wear, but upon trying it I realised I was wrong and this stopped my lips from falling off when I was watching J play hockey in arctic conditions.

 



 

 My shade is 02 Tender Pink which comes out very sheer and tastes and smells nice too (always a bonus).

For a while I refused to change from my Body Shop strawberry body butter but I couldn't actually use that for my face, but my friend, L, introduced me to this,

Nivea's Soft cream is good for everything, even sore lips, and it seems to last for forever and it seems to be a make up bag staple in my class!

A slightly food and beauty orientated month, the holidays are coming now, so I promise more posts!

What I'm Wearing 23/03/2013

When I first started writing this blog, I wanted the general theme of it to be an "all rounder" and I feel that instead of being a circle, my blog is more of an acute triangle pointing directly towards a huge stack of recipes, so this post is me dipping my toe into the fashion post pond.

I wouldn't call myself a fashionable person, especially as I sit here writing this I am dressed in an unflattering teddy fleece onepiece and slippers, with my hair piled on top of my head. I know what you're thinking, snuggly, hey? In reality, that is how I dress the majority of the time, I go to my school's sixth form and my thinking is that it is a single sex school, there isn't anyone to impress, so usually I go in looking like a drowned rat.

Anyway, it's J's friend's very casual surprise party this evening and I thought I'd post what I was wearing... (Apologies for all the appearances that my loo makes!)

This playsuit was a bargin from H & M that I found lurking on their sale rails, it goes really well with all jackets, so I find myself wearing it reasonably often.

I edited this so much to try and disguise my no make up face... And failed miserably!

 

My denim jacket is just from Topshop, when I bought it I didnt realise that it was slightly cropped, but I try and balance it out by rolling up the sleeves so they are 3/4.

 

 

My silk scarf is one of the scarves that my mum has passed down to me as she doesn't wear them any more, I think they're really pretty and I've had tonnes of compliments on them.

But of course I couldn't go empty handed, so I rummaged around and made some rocky road.

At my school, whenever it is someone's birthday someone is sure to make C's rocky road. Now, this isn't your normal rocky road, it's infinatley better than any that I've ever tasted.
(Cue food porn.)

Yes, those are malteasers you can see.
Yes, those are marshmallows, m&ms and bits of toffee.
Yes, I have used honeycomb chocolate because there were no Crunchies avaliable.

I do hope none of these people are on a diet...

Reece's Cookies

This is so easy, it shouldn't really be classified as a recipe.
After a trip to ASDA and finding out that they have loads of American food in there, my boyfriend and I waddled off home with our arms full, and one of the things we bought were these,

To make these all you'll need are some Reece's mini peanut butter cups and either some ready-mix cookie dough or some of your own cookie dough.

If you're going with the former, simply follow the directions on the box,

Take about a tablespoonful and wrap it around a peanut butter cup,

Disappointingly my bag of Betty Crocker only allowed for 6, hey ho!

Take them out after the allotted time, don't move them until they have cooled otherwise you risk dropping your cup out the bottom, and that would be a shame, seeing as that's the best bit.

Red Velvet





When my boyfriend comes over one of our hobbies is to bake together. It totally isn't my hobby that he's forced into doing. At the mention of "red velvet" and of "cream cheese" J freaked out big time so we (I) thought we'd give this recipe a go.

 

They aren't too rich but they could be accompanied perfectly with ice cream.

 



Red Velvet:
 2 eggs
4oz butter
8oz caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2.5oz cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 tbsp red food colouring
3/4 tsp white wine vinegar
3.5oz plain flour

Cream Cheese:
8oz cream cheese
2oz caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla

First preheat the oven to about 170 celcius, beat the eggs separately and put them to one side as you won't be needing them for a little while yet, I got my boyfriend helper J to do this.

After you have measured your butter, melt it completely so that you can add the rest of the ingredients.

Add your sugar, vanilla, cocoa, salt, food colouring and vinegar.

Mine looked a little lumpy, never mind, after this mix in the eggs,

Then fold in the flour, which will make it a lot smoother.

Pour into an brownie tin, leaving a couple of tablespoons of the mixture in the bowl.

Now onto the cream cheese, mix the cream cheese together in with the sugar, egg yolk and vanilla.

Spoon this mix on top of the red concoction, then pour the rest of the red on top of the cream cheese, with a knife, swirl between the different layers to create a pattern.

Then put in the oven for about 28 mins, or until a skewer or cocktail stick comes clean. While you're waiting for them to bake, you could wash up, like I did, or lick the bowl, like J did.

It should make 16 tasty brownies.

My boyfriend has the timer around his neck- not some bizarre medalion

They even had J's seal of approval, despite being "so full, I can't eat any more" he ate three.