Pretzels & Goings On

July 8, 2016October 5, 2017 / hayleyiraina / Leave a comment

So I haven’t been up to that much, occasionally seeing friends for more afternoon tea (can there ever be too much?).

Discovering the Park & Ride… oh the joy.

I know… I’m so interesting. In other news I gave in my notice at my job to quit the NHS and start working agency. Because I’m waiting on a visa to go through so that I can actually live on the same continent as my wife (wouldn’t that be a luxury?) I need something more flexible in terms of time off so that I can go visit her more often hopefully so I’m looking forward to starting that. In other news though I’ll technically self employed as I can claim back quite a lot of tax which means I have to start my own company (by me I mean my accountants) which is quite funny. Sooo… hopefully all that will be kicking off soon.

In other news the other day I made pretzels, I got one of those kits they sell at Auntie Anne’s in the mall.

It was pretty easy, I wore my cupcake baking apron my mum got me of course. You just put yeast in warm water.

Then you put that water into the dough mix.

Gloop it about a bit.

Then let your dough rise.

Then it is time to Pretzel. The shaping is the awkward part because the dough is very elastic-y.

A little twisty bit.

You know maybe I did too many twists… but it’s all good.

Then you make a bicarbonate of soda mixture up in hot water.

And bathe the little pretzels in it and set them out for a dry.

Then it’s time for baking. I made some salty… I put extra salt on because most of it fell off so I just brushed off the excess after baking.

I made some plain then after baking added a glaze of melted butter and cinnamon sugar.

And that was that. What else have I been up to… some friends and I went out for Joy’s birthday to Zizzis and had some awesome tiramisu.

And Sarah and I went to the movies to see The Secret Life Of Pets which I very much enjoyed. I have a lot of catch ups planned soon, next week I see my Great Aunt, Uncle and Mum’s Cousin. The week after my Mum and Brother come to stay for my graduation ceremony (despite leaving university last year!), and then a couple weeks after that Kim is visiting for a couple of weeks from Connecticut.

Tasty Treats

April 25, 2013March 23, 2015 / hayleyiraina / Leave a comment

We had gingerbread men this week, tasty tasty.

I also decided to make up some Kool Aid

I hadn’t had Kool Aid before, I saw it on sale in a shop and thought I’d try it. It’s a bit like powdered squash

You just stick it in, add water and mix, then add sugar

Very orange! It’s ok, but it’s pretty much just like orange squash

Spring

April 2, 2013March 23, 2015 / hayleyiraina / Leave a comment

Spring has sprung and I decided to celebrate my Easter holidays with some cookies.

I found this cookie dough in Sainsbury’s and thought I’d try it

All you have to do is cut up the dough

Roll it into balls and put onto a baking sheet

Then cook, how simple is that? And they tasted really nice. I may have tried some of the cookie dough raw too, so so good.

The weather here is still coldish but at least it’s dry and I can hang out some laundry outside, supervised by my little furry assistant of course. My mum and sister are also staying a few days which is nice and I managed to fit in extra hours at work so I dont feel as guilty having time off of uni.

Jesus isn’t the only thing rising this Easter…

April 6, 2012March 23, 2015 / hayleyiraina / Leave a comment

I decided that after watching a Delia episode on baking bread I thought I’d try my luck at it. I hadn’t ever made bread before because people with breadmakers had tricked me into thinking it’d be difficult. Also there are a lot of bread recipies online where you have to muck about with your yeast. Luckily, Delia says with her simple recipe “let’s cut the crap and bake some tasty bread!”… Ok so she didn’t exactly say that but I imagine that’s what she would have said if she wasn’t on TV. My mum said she only made bread once, when she a was a little girl because there was a bread strike. I thought that sort of thing only happened in the reign of terror but there we are.

First I got all my ingredients – surprisingly few!

I was very interested in the yeast

I don’t know exactly what it’s made of but it looked rather interesting. Next I seived all my ingredients in a big bowl together and mixed them all around, no faffing about with putting the yeast one side etc etc

Then I dug a little well and added warm water

Gave it a little stir

Then I squidged it with my hands

Then I kneaded it for a bit and then left it in a bowl covered in cling film for two hours

And when I came back it had grown!

How exciting!! Then I knocked out the air and kneaded some more, then divided it into two loaf pans

Then I left these for an hour then put them in the oven for about 35 minutes… and out came my bread!

Hurrah!

Then time for a taste test

Yummerz. Here’s the recipe if you fancy some of your own tasty tasty bread Take me to the bread!

Why Delia’s The Best

April 1, 2012March 23, 2015 / hayleyiraina / Leave a comment

I’m a child of the Delia Smith generation, my mum swears by her and the house was always full of her books.

I’ve been watching her TV version of one of her books on the good food channel recently

And I just love simple her recipes are and then you can make them a bit more fancy if you like. I can’t stand recipes that have ridiculous ingredients that you have to go out and buy because no normal human being stocks them in their cupboards. Anyway, if you have the good food channel on your TV then matime to check out her ‘how to cook’ lessons, she’s great.

Lastly – another reason Delia’s awesome. She was born in Woking and loves Norwich. I’m from Woking and live in Norwich! Forget the other TV chefs, Delia’s withstood the test of time and chef fads.