The Many Adventures of Dinnie the Pooh featuring my adventures travelling, baking and trying to get through life (mostly) unscathed. It's not really going to plan but at least I can try
December is arguably my favourite month of the year as not only is it Christmas but also my birthday! ....and ok if you read my last my last post I really wasn't looking forward to the latter but still birthday merriment!
It was my original intention to do 25 days of birthday but Christmas would have interfered- rude. Therefore rather than celebrating my birthday on just one day I decided to do something exciting and celebratory every day for two weeks. Some of my favourites included going for hot chocolate at Roast and Conch
Taking a quick jaunt down to Wiltshire/Somerset...to see family but mostly for a shopping trip in Bath
And two super smashing awesome gigs within the space of week including the bloody brilliant Coasts and Don Broco on Monday...
It’s my birthday tomorrow and I’m absolutely terrified. 25; that’s quarter of century. You can except your first wrinkles to appear, you’ve reached your peak bone mass, indeed brain cells will start to die off. It’s all downhill from here.
Now people are getting engaged and married and having babies because it’s perfectly acceptable to do so at this age. No longer is it a case of ‘they’re much too young.’
Yes I’m going to be 25 tomorrow and what have I got to show for it?
I used to think that I was ambitious and knew what I wanted to do with my life but I have no more of an idea of what to do with myself than I ever did.
At our university graduation there was a speech that pretty much gave us 'permission to get lost.’ Well I’d quite like some 'permission to be found’ or at least find whatever it is I’m supposed to be looking for: you now the whole purpose, happiness, sense of worth thing.
Indeed if anything I’m in a more dire strait now than I ever was. I mean where would I be without the whole crippling self doubt, severe social anxiety and worry and stress levels that are off the charts.
What was it they said about Captain Hook in Peter Pan? Old. Alone. Done For - yup that about sums it up.
Over recent years I have truly embraced the phenomenon of going to gigs from small coffee shop venues to huge arenas I've had the pleasure of listening to big names and discovering fresh new talents and I'd like to share some of my favourite gigs that I have been to over this past year. As pretty much all of these were incredibly, posilutely, amazingly AWESOME!!!!! I can't pick my favourite so whilst this is technically a top seven list...I'm not ranking one above another.
Melodic rock with hints of country, perfectly blended fantastic harmonies and catchy guitar riffs? Well thats Hunter And The Bear. I particularly loved the emotionally gripping acapella track 'Wounded'
Perfection, thats a word you could use for the smooth, mellow resonance of Daniel Pearson. This year may have been trying for Daniel Pearson but bloody hell does he sound good.
I may or may not have been following Rupert Stroud's music career for quite some time now and every time I see him he gets better and better! Having already fallen in love with 'Morning Light' and 'Way Back Home' which yes are staples on my Spotify playlists I was totally blown away by 'The Truth' (hahahahaha) and recent release Catch - which as the name suggests is actually rather catchy.
Live At Leeds was only Raleigh Richie's third EVER gig but you wouldn't have guessed it as he was simply Outstanding. Raleigh Ritchie a.k.a Greyworm on HBO's Game Of Thrones stage presence was mesmerising and he didn't sound half bad either.
I've actually been to see Rae Morris twice this year; once in February and once in October and it was so lovely to see how she has grown as an artist. The Blackpool born singer with a voice of an angel has an somewhat ethereal and you could even say say that listening to her set is really quite magical.
My sister bought me tickets to see Hozier last Christmas, the gig was not until the end of May so I have had to sit patiently twiddling my thumbs. Definitely worth the wait though because OMG how good was he!!
Perhaps best known for 'Take Me To Church' Hozier packs a powerful emotional punch with sultry and soulful sounds.
To be honest I bought my ticket to go and see these guys before I had really listened to their music so you could say that they were a new favourite of mine....and bloody hell you would be right about that one as I would end going to see Coasts again and again and again!
With massive stage presence and unforgettable, catchy choruses Coasts are infectiously flawless and I look forward to the release of their debut album on Jan 22nd...not that I'm counting down the days or anything.
To achieve green Christmas tree biscuits I find that you either have to use ridiculously bright icing or indeed lots of food colouring, (unless you are actually using paste because that stuff is STRONG…I mean it did stain my tongue once.) In the battle to try and cut down on the number of E-numbers and artificial stuff that we injest. Cue the matcha tea.
This green tea powder works well in baking and will give my Christmas trees a lovely shade of green….well hopefully.
So first things first, let's gather the ingredients together. I shall be making almond shortbread so will need:
175g mix of flour and ground almonds. You can use this in any ratio that you want to i.e. 125g flour and 50g almonds or indeed 100g flour and 75g almonds. I will be using the latter quantities however you will need to use flour on a roughly half and half basis to keep the consistency and to make it easier when rubbing in.
125g caster sugar or light brown sugar if you prefer
55g butter
1/2 tbsp matcha green tea
25g goji berries (optional) I'm adding some goji berries to my mixture to create baubles on my Christmas tress.
So I haven't even started yet and I've already encountered my first problem: I have no ground almonds. Alas fear not as I have a bag of whole almonds and using my trusty Bamix can use the wet and dry grinder to make ground nuts. I'm leaving mine a little rough for the texture.
Next put all the ingredients bar the matcha and goji berries (if using) in a large bowl and rub in. I am using a knife to cut my butter into small pieces before starting to make the process easier.
As you are not making a crumble it doesn't matter how fine the mixture is, the most important thing is that the butter is thoroughly combined with the dry ingredients.
When you are happy with the consistency add half a tbsp of Matcha (I'm using Eat Clean Tea Morning Matcha) and after rubbing this in squish all your mixture together to form a dough.
Similar to any shortbread you will need to let it rest for half an hour so wrap it up in some cling film, stick it in the fridge...and to sit back and plan the next phase.
Those beady eyed amongst you may have noticed that I haven't added the goji berries yet. This is because after I remove the dough from the fridge I shall be giving it a bit of a knead (to warm it up, it should not need to be kneaded long) and I will add the goji berries just before the rolling it out.
Oh by the way you may want to preheat the oven at this stage: 180c or gas mark 4.
Ok so I have a star cutter but last time I checked stars don't have baubles so for my first batch I'm not using goji. In total I have 30 stars. Place the rest of the dough back in the cling film so that it doesn't dry out whilst getting the stars ready.
I'm ready for the berries are you?
Roughly roll out the dough into a rectangle and place the berries in the centre. You could also do this with anything else that you felt like adding. Make it a double almond whammy be adding chopped almonds or try different coloured baubles with the addition of mixed peel or dried fruits.
Anyway whatever additional ingredient you add place it in the middle of your dough and fold your dough into the centre enveloping whatever it is in the middle. Give the dough a little bit of a knee and you re ready to flour the surface (or silicon mat) and ready, set, roll!
If your Christmas tree cutter is anything like mine i.e. small and fiddly be prepared to lose the tops, bottoms or sometimes both of the biscuits as you struggle to get the dough out of the cutter.
upside down Christmas trees anyone?
Bake for approximately five minutes and leave to cool on the tray for a bit before you try to move them as your biscuits will still be quite soft when you first remove them from the oven. I tried taking them from the tray to the cooling rack before they were ready andthe biscuit just crumbled....so I won't be trying that again.
So there you have it; Christmassy Matcha Almond shortbread. yummy.
The hardest part of these monthly favourite blogs for me is actually remembering what I have been doing over the past month. If any of you know me you may be aware that my memory is really rather pants. Therefore I find that Instagram is very useful for reminding what I have actually been up to. So yeah sorry about the number of pictures of food that I post on there…..
1. Taste Of London.
Last week (20th Nov) my mother and I took a quick hop, skip and a jump down to the Tobacco Dock in London for the Taste Of London: The Festive Editon. The event which ran over four consecutive days was portend into time slots and we were the daytime (11-4pm) on Friday. Due to our train times we didn't arrive at the venue until 12.30pm. Dammit missed out on valuable munching time there.
Luckily as we went on Friday it wasn't overly crowded (although I did get quite irate about the crowds) and we managed to sample many of the goodies on offer: Liquid nitrogen frozen ice cream anyone?
Indeed I even ate at Tom Aikens' restaurant….well sort of. I had the belly pork in case you were wondering.
As part of the festival there was a ‘Taste of HBO’ section which included not only a gingerbread version of King’s Landing but also the Iron Throne where I could take my rightful place….move over Lannisters!
The highlight of the day for me was watching the demo from Masterchef’s Monica Galetti. The fierce female judge made a simple yet very effective take on the classic dessert: an ice cream float. Using pieces of ginger, pear and ginger cake mingled with a creme anglaise semi freddo and lashings of ginger beer and Guinness this festive pudding ticked all the right boxes for me.
I even got to sit on the judge’s table and was able to sample the dish and it was thumbs up from me.
2.Marshmallows
As with fashion trends in food are always changing. I mean from sushi to cupcakes there always seems to the ‘cool thing’ to be eating right now and marshmallows are in! By this I don't mean the mass produced Flumps or Haribo equivalents. Its the gourmet marshmallow that is setting the fluffy pace and there has already been a steady stream of companies setting up shop.: something I was made very aware of at Taste Of London. I may have bought my self a box of marshmallows to take home….they didn't last long.
I first became aware of this new trend when I went for dinner with my parents, aunt and uncle at The Golden Fleece in Birkenshaw. Feast your eyes on those beauties.
Clearly I have been ahead of the game as I tried my hand at making my own marshmallows way back in 2014. Yet I seem to recall that little experiment going wrong…..very wrong.
3. The Costa Christmas Range. As mentioned I am a creature of habit and will generally always go into the same coffee shop (mostly Costa) and will sit at my usual table with my usual drink; a medium vanilla latte. Don't get too excited now guys but when the new Christmas range came out it was goodbye VL, hello Christmas!!! I haven't quite worked my way through the whole selection yet but thus far my favourites include the Tiramisu Latte (thanks for the recommendation by the way)
and the truly indulgent Caramel Fudge Hot Chocolate: although I can't have the hot chocolate too early in the day as it will put me to sleep...
4. Quick Fix Facial Mask
I bought this face mask at Boots quite a while ago now and even though it says that the mask is for sensitive skin I can feel my face tingling after a while of wearing the mask so rather than the 5-10 minutes stated as the recommended time I tend to opt for nearer the five than the ten before washing it off.
Whilst containing a mixture of oatmeal, aloe vera, chamomile and rose; all ingredients that have a calming effect, I felt that it does not do what do what it says on the packet.
There are quite a lot of mixed reviews for this product but I would tend to say that if you have sensitive skin I would approach this mask with caution...although I thought that my skin was sensitive and I'm fine with it.
With all this negative press about the mask why would I go and put it in my favourites? The answer is simple. Even though the packaging is misleading I think that the mask works for me.
Anxiety attacks (not to be confused with panic attacks) have become a common occurrence for me recently, well more than usual, so here's a few tips on how I deal (or not as the case may be) with them.
What exactly is the difference between an anxiety and a panic attack? The two terms are often used to mean the same thing but although they can seem to be very similar they are actually key differences: An anxiety attack occurs as a result of a stressor. Stressor: An event or stimulus that cause us to experience psychological stress. For example I normally experience these when my stress levels are particularly high due to work or otherwise, (yes I did have a meltdown about my knitting earlier today but lets just skip that one) being in a situation that causes you to panic (most social occasions really) and even anything that takes me out of my comfort zone.....hence why I am such a creature of habit. A panic attack on the other hand is often not set of by a particular stressor and can in fact be quite random in so far as they are unpredictable and unprovoked. As well as feelings of panic and apprehension these may also be accompanied by physical symptoms such as chest pain and shortness of breath, nausea and even dizziness. Read more about the pschologicallyness here So now that we've cleared that up, what does it feel like to have a anxiety attack? Well in short its hell. Besides the crippling fear you can feel your heart beating at a rate that is off the charts and are very short of breath. Oh and tears: in my case there's normally a lot of tears involved. However anxiety attacks are as unpredictable as they are annoying and can take many different forms:
As an anxiety attack is normally brought on by a stressor you can normally stop them be taking removing yourself from the situation. Simply walk away from the problem. I often find that my attacks are accompanied by a hot flush so find that going outside for some fresh air is very helpful.
Breathe deeply. As you may become short of breath during one of these episodes it is crucially important that sufficient oxygen is reaching your lungs. Try calming yourself down by taking 10 deep breaths.
