My baby is five!

.....by that I mean this blog I don't actually have a small child.....

Its crazy to think that come june I will have been writing this blog for five years! Of course its predaccesor '21 Things To Do Before I'm 21' has already surpassed that milestone yet that one was always going to a temporary thing whereas this one has made much more of an impact...on my life anyway.

When I looked back through the archives of posts (because there was no way of knowing what my first post was from memory - my memory is pants) I started to write this whilst on holiday in France. Obviously my anecdotes were too hilarious to keep myself so I had to post them. To this day one of my earliest posts remains the most popular. You could go and read Bees and Pins here if you wanted to.

It was my intention to insert the graph thingy from google analytics in here but to be honest it was rather depressing. My goal was never to build a readership - say that today and everyone will think I'm mad. I mean people only start writing a blog for followers and free stuff now right?

Anyway I'm straying away from the point...what was my point?

I started this blog quite unintentionally as a sort of travel journal/log/diary thing. As I have probably mentioned fruitless times before my memory is so amazingly good that I need to write things down.
Alas as with most things in life this blog kind of spiralled out of control and now I don't even know what is going on anymore.


Despite launching in 2011 the first two years of Dinnie The Pooh were rather slow as I did have to juggle them with uni and all that. However once I gradated and went out into 'the real world' the blog started to pick up and took on a more 'self-help' and 'ranty' tone. First I had 'Fears Of Flying'  , then I told you 'How NOT to do job interviews and there was quite a bit of baking too!

So what have we learnt through this five year excursion?

I've been quite experimental with my baking. In case you wanted to know my Honeybush tea infused macarons are the most popular of my recipes. Read it here.

We've delved into the world of mental health and looked at anxiety, social anxiety and even depression.

I still have no idea what I'm doing with my life and I suck at job interviews.

There's a bit of a poll on my twitter page (@tweedle_dins) in case anyone reading this (is anyone actually reading this?) wanted to go and suggest what I could do to mark my 5th bloggerversay.
Update: the poll is over now and June 26th is a distant memory (I am writing this three days later so yes that statement would be accurate.)

I said way, way, way back at the top of the page that my blog is five in June and at the end of the month at that! so why dear reader am I writing this in May? - Well its my party and I'll blog about it if I want to.

Summer Of Matcha: Matcha Ginger Zinger

I'm taking part in EatCleanTea's 'Summer Of Matcha' challenge to concoct a refreshing summery drink that isn't full of additives, sweeteners and stuff that is generally bad for you.  However true to form things started to go a bit pear shaped.....and not just because I was using a pear.

My recipe is based on the Matcha and Ginger  variety so I started things off by brainstorming flavours combinations for my juice and finally decided on  ginger (from the matcha) + lemon + carrot.  plus extra stuff but more on that later.

Ginger and lemon are both sialagogues meaning that they increase the flow of saliva and other gastric juices i.e. are good for digestion. These ingredients with the added goodness of the carrot make the juice good for cleansing plus its also a diuretic so go flush those toxins away.

This recipe took some trial an error to get it right; I mean first I put in too much lemon juice and it was too lemony so I added more ginger....

Yet as the name suggests the 'matcha and ginger' already contains the ginger so I actually just ended up with very a strong and spicy flavour. I tried to counteract this by adding spinach and extra water but nevertheless have a strong juice that whacks a punch to be quite honest (as long as you don't over dilute it)

Anyway to make this tart yet detoxifying juice you will need

• 2-3 carrots
• 1 pear 
• juice of half a lemon (or you could do what I did and use a whole rather large lemon and then panic and put lots of ginger in to cover u your mistake)
• 400ml water
• 1 tsp matcha and ginger
• a handful of spinach
• 4-6 ice cubes

Add all your ingredients to blender ( I used a Vitamix) and whizz until smooth. I have not peeled my fruit and veg (besides the ginger) and therefore my juice is a bit 'bitty'