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.
