Away with the fairies: January 2015

25 January 2015

Just a glimpse

Boat watching at Trelissick Gardens

Even though I forgot to write a blog post last weekend, I still don't really have that much to say. It's not that I haven't been busy doing stuff, I just don't feel anything has been stand-alone blog worthy just yet. This post is kind of a quick round up of some of the things I've been up to in the past fortnight as there has been plenty of Cornwall exploring and a trip to York thrown in for good measure.

A few weekends ago we ventured out to the North coast of Cornwall to visit Padstow. We live on the South coast but most of the North coast can be reached within an hour. During the Winter we decided it's best to visit towns on the weekend when the shops are more likely to be open and Padstow didn't disappoint. There were plenty of cute seaside shops as well as the usual Fat Face and surf clothes shops. Ryan got himself this lovely jumper in the White Stuff sale. We ate lunch at Rick Stein's Fish and Chips (who currently have a cheap winter special) before having a stroll around the harbour. Seaside Saturdays at their finest!

Last week started off with a busy couple of days at work with the Eden Gathering. Everyone who works at Eden comes together and spends two days celebrating, exploring the site, having fun and drinking plenty of tea. After work on Tuesday we travelled the eight hours up to York so that Ryan could go and spend some time in his office... I just tagged along for a mini-break. Thank you to Viv and Dave for letting us move back temporarily! While we were in York I visited Sam in Yarm to catch up and exchange very geeky Christmas presents. We also went to help out in Viv and Dave's woodland before warming up with toasted marshmallows - it was so pretty with a coating of snow.

Back in Cornwall it has been nonstop for me at work this week, I was very thankful to spend Friday evening snuggled in a blanket with my feet up... wild!! Yesterday Ryan managed to drag me out of the house, despite my great desire to stay in bed, and we had a fun day at St Mawes beach. The sun was shining, we had a pasty for lunch whilst watching the boats and I found two really awesome shells. Fingers crossed for good weather again today because Ryan wants to go sea-cliff climbing!

Until next time...

image source

11 January 2015

January Chill

After a busy December, travelling across the country to see various family members for Christmas, January has been very chilled out so far. I was back at work on Thursday which is a lot later than most other people. I am very grateful for the time I've had to spend relaxing and doing my own thing! Here's what I've been up to..

Pinning...
Painted stones: I collected some stones from our recent walk to Vault Beach and wanted to decorate them. Pinterest is always a good place to look for inspiration when stuck for ideas.
Sweet potato and Figs: Ryan orders a veg box so I like to pin yummy recipes incase we have random veggies left over.
Geeky things: This is totally what Pinterest is for right?
Yoga stuff: Since joining a class I've learned a lot about how yoga affects the mind and body. It's nice to look further into the benefits and check out new poses.

My Pinterest

Cooking...
Ryan bought the beautiful Persiana cookbook with some Waterstones vouchers a while ago and we've recently spent more time looking in there for recipes to try out. If you fancy some Middle Eastern meals the book is now just £10 on Amazon. Last week I blogged about some Pistachio & Lime cakes that I made, the recipe can be found here.

Reading...
Before Christmas I was re-reading Harry Potter, ready to watch all the films on ITV whilst scoffing too many Quality Street chocolates. Sam has been nagging me for ages to read Divergent so I finally succumbed and bought it for my kindle from Amazon. I read Divergent in a day and I've almost finished Insurgent too. Sam was right, I love it!

Watching...
Now that Homeland has finished we have filled the Sunday Evening void with Walking the Nile. It's interesting but also quite shocking in places. Our Saturday Night cheese factor is Take me Out, so bad that it's good, Ryan definitely secretly enjoys it. I'm really happy that the The Undateables has returned for another series too! January is most certainly a time for warm blankets, tea and TV. I've also been watching too much Buffy on Netflix with Ryan as well. I used to have all of the seasons on DVD but as they say, you don't know what you've got till it's gone.

"What do you mean you traded me in at CEX?"

Planning...
Ryan's Mum really kindly gave him some money for us to spend on a holiday for the both of us. We've been thinking about the places we could go and how we could make the most of it. At the moment we are thinking Italy but haven't narrowed it down. I'm thinking Rome and Ryan's thinking Florence, decisions decisions.

Wearing...
For Christmas and my Birthday (which is also December) I had lots of lovely new things. My new Seasalt coat has kept me nice and warm on many occasions and I've been teaming up my new converse from Ryan with lots of outfits. They are a gorgeous purple colour and I'm excited to incorporate them in my Spring wardrobe too. You can still buy them here.

Playing...
This is probably even more geeky than my Pinterest boards. Two years ago I got Lego Lord of the Rings on the Wii as a joint Christmas present with my sister Nikki. We'd already completed both Lego Harry Potter Games to 100% and were totally up for a new challenge. As we were both at Uni we weren't home much and despite completing the levels, we hadn't reached 100%. Over Christmas I sort of got Ryan hooked so we bought the Wii back with us to try and finish it together. Nerdy couple alert!

5 January 2015

Pistachio & Lime Cakes

For my birthday last year I got the Pocket Bakery by Rose Prince as a present. It has a cute design and I love that it has photographs of the finished products. Some of the recipes are extremely detailed and quite intimidating for me - I often skip the pastry section! So far I've made some Carrot, Oat & Orange Muffins and Masala Chai Fruit Cakes, which is quite pitiful considering I've had the book for over a year. Ryan has been wanting to make Potato & Feta Bread for a few days so we decided to have a baking afternoon together in our tiny kitchen. I opted for these delicious sounding Pistachio & Lime Cakes which turned out really well. Below is my tweaked version of the recipe... I never bake by the book!

Pistachio & Lime Cakes

Ingredients/Equipment:

Muffin/Cake tin
12 paper cases
Mixing bowl and spoon

125ml milk
15ml fresh lime juice
60g butter
150g soft brown sugar
Zest of 2 limes
2 eggs
50g of pistachios
50g ground almonds
275g self raising flour (for plain flour, add 4tsp of baking powder)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 220°C and prepare the limes and pistachios so that you can put them in the mixture when needed. I bought shelled pistachios so it took a while to shell them all and it was a challenge not to eat them! You can use a food processor to crush the nuts but I used a pestle and mortar.

Pour the milk into a jug and add the lime juice before setting to one side. This will thicken the milk slightly ready to add at the end.

Add the butter (in small chunks) and sugar to a big mixing bowl and cream together until it forms a paste-like texture. Then you can add the ready-prepared lime zest and beat in the eggs.

Next add the ground almonds and pistachios and mix before gradually adding the flour; don't forget the baking powder if you use plain flour like I did. You can also use white or wholemeal flour.

It's quite tough to mix at this point but try and combine the ingredients as best you can. Once mixed, you can pour in the milk and stir until you have a smooth cake batter.

Finally, spoon the mixture into the cake cases in your cake tin. I would suggest adding slightly more than you would for fairy cakes. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until they are starting to look golden on the top. You can test if cakes are ready by inserting a clean knife into one of the cakes, if it comes out without any mixture on, the cakes are done!

The original recipe also had a caramel topping that could be made using caramel jam and icing sugar. I wasn't even sure what caramel jam is so I opted not to top my cakes with anything. They are super delicious with really strong flavours - nutty and citrus all in one.

Enjoy!!

For other tried and tested recipes from Away with the Fairies, follow the links below...

If you fancied making Ryan's Potato and Feta Bread, you can find the recipe here.

xxx

1 January 2015

2014 Favourites

Well Christmas has flown by and gone for another year. I hope that everyone had as much fun as I did over the holidays. We left for Wolverhampton on the 20th December to spend Christmas with my family before driving accross to Chelmsford on Boxing Day to see Ryan's family so it's all been a bit of a busy blur. Yesterday we did the long journey home back to Corwall, with a car full of Christmas goodies, ready to snuggle up and watch the fireworks with a glass of mulled wine. It hasn't quite sunk in yet that it's a new year and all the festive celebrations are over so I've written a blog to look back at some of my favourite parts of 2014.

January