Ready to use

It has come to my attention that I haven't written in this blog for a whole month now... Where has the time gone? To be perfectly honest I think it's just all done to laziness. It's hard to think of a topic each time I open up this page on my screen and I know I have a lot that I can write about since this is very broad on what I can tell online. Here is one anyway... ready frosting..

I was invited to a gathering at a friends house during my week off in May. It was just all finger food and games night really.. I offered to make something sweet e.g. cupcakes.

Cupcakes itself is easy to bake and doesn't take long either.. I find the decorating part can take longer than the actual baking.. It's always about the looks or the cover of book that one would find appealing to their eyes. We always say 'never judge a book by it's cover' or a person by their looks. Well, thats not the case for cakes... with this in mind I didn't know how I wanted to decorate these cupcakes that I was going to make. Whilst shopping around in the supermarket I found their own brand ready to use frosting icing in a vanilla flavour. I thought this would be perfect. I have never been sure of using the ready to use or bake packs. I was surprised by this though..

To be fair, these cupcakes were delicious. The mini marshmallows just finished it off nicely in terms of decoration wise.

baking marathon

Well, after a week of holiday it has come to my weekly day off even though I've only been back at work for 2 days. My only day in the week that I can rest and recharge my batteries for the following 6 days ahead of me whether it's busy or not I still need the energy to get through them. Sometimes it can be crazy - depends on how I feel and those around me. It can get to a point where I just have some crazy fun with colleagues or even customers. Dependent on their nature if they can take a joke and not take it to heart. 90% of the time it's ok to ahve a laugh with them. Or it could get really bad where I just put on a fake smile and to me then everything and everyone will some what annoy me, except for those who know me well and will steer clear of me. At that stage I wish that I could do such and such a thing but it never seems to happen since I usually have a few errands to do on my day off. However, today was an exception. I didn't.

I thoroughly enjoyed a real lazy lie in today, I didn't really get out of my bed until near enough 1pm. Don't get me wrong I was awake already from a phone call from the MR asking me what I'd be getting up to - I didn't know. After the phone call I rambled on in my head what I wanted to do. I said to a girl last night that I had quite a lot of plain and self raising flour to use up. *ding ding* why not bake? Whilst baking I can watch Season 1 part 1 of Glee and knit too. How amazing would that be? I can tell you it was. I got up and dressed and chose what I wanted to make from looking at a cook's book. It sure has some goodies in there. I then wrote down what I needed from Asda which was my closest supermarket and headed out. I came home and decided which order to make the baked goodies. Then I realised I forgot to get the right amount of butter which meant I had to do what I planned on making last first so that I could head out whilst it was sitting in the oven baking.

After the 2nd trip to Asda the house was already smelling of baked chocolate mousse. It smelt yummy. Whilst still waiting on it to be baked I moved onto my 2nd bake - chocolate brownies. The timing was just in time for everything, by the time the brownies was ready to go in the oven - the mousse was ready. I had 15 minutes to do the cleaning up and prep for my last bake of the day. The strawberry and cream sponge cake. The only problem I have at the end of all this baking was who is gonna help me eat all this? 

Chocolate Brownies

baked choc mousse

Strawberry and Cream Sponge Cake

After the baking marathon, I made myself dinner which compromised Chicken wings and pasta with some cheese. A simple dish. My entertainment was my LoveFilm DVD which consisted of Season 1 part 1 Glee. =) 

Finished eating and I still had a few more episodes of Glee to get through so  to round off the evening I picked up my knitting needles in front of the telly. As I finished off a little bit of my cardigan the DVD came to an end.  

Staying In

After all the travelling the past 2 days I thought it was time to stay in and just chill out for the next few days before going back to work... It was a struggle on deciding on what to make for dinner. The food shopping was simple once I knew what I haven't eaten for a loong time.. A home made macaroni cheese. This dish brings back some fond memories that has been buried away.

I thoroughly enjoyed this dish tonight. It didn't taste quite right but I only have myself to blame as I made the sauce up a little bit as I cooked it in the pan.Nevertheless it is still one of my favourite dishes of all times. =)

Sometimes in life I wish I could go back to the past to make some changes. However, everything happens for a reason. Whether it's for good or bad it  depends on how we see it ourselves. Personally, everything that has happened in my life was for the best. Sometimes I like asking myself 'what if' questions, it is such a rhetorical question because we will never get an answer from these unless it really did happen or we make it happen ourselves.

teddy bear

It fees like its been a while since my last post. In that time I have made a few quick knits to use up some of my stash that I have in a box. I really didn't know what else to make but a bright idea came to mind. Just a wee knitted bear for a wee girl called Ava.

It's now time to go back to my bigger projects that I had on hold for so long, time to finish those off. No doubt after a while I will get bored and move onto another quick knit.

fair isle knitting

I have only been knitting and crocheting for a few months. I thought I'd give this 'fair isle' or 'intarsia' knitting a go and here is the outcome.

I am quite proud of this small knit being a first attempt at it... Now all I need to do is try other techniques that I haven't tried yet. =)

I am now going to work on a lot of mini projects so that I can use up my stash or yarn... any ideas what next?

Sunday lunch

 I just looked back at the number of posts that I had about food and there isn't much so here is a little blog with some food included.

Today was just a breeze.. Started off with going to Wagamamma for lunch... Personally I wouldn't have chosen to go there since I have been there a few times already.. This time round I had something different from what I had in the past... 

Yaki Udon

Chicken Katsu Curry

Chicken Ramen

I enjoyed my sunday lunch today.. After that I went for a quick browse around in the shopping centre... I could spend a whole day looking at knitting/crocheting patterns and wool... I think it might be a good idea to try and use up some of the yarn that I have at home... After all of thatit was time to head to work. 

The shift wasn't too bad.. it was steady enough for the night so I was a happy bunny. =)

knitting for charity 2

I have been asked to knit a baby jumper for those babies who have been born with the AIDS virus and have nothing to keep them warm except from newspapers. It was a free-style on the colours so here is mines. I used Sirdar Click dk wool and some odd ball of yarn that I got with a magazine a few months back.

It gave me great pleasure to knit this jumper as it will be going towards a good cause. From this project I have learnt new techniques for knitting and it's all thanks to some tutorial videos on YouTube.

The deadline is end of May, if anyone is interested in contributing towards this project click here for the pattern for babies jumper.