Savoury Muffins

I've never had savoury muffins before and thought they'd be a bit odd. But I am such a savoury girl. So I thought I'd go for it and make some cheese and spinach muffins. I don't know why I chose spinach as I live with 4 very picky boys. The other 1 and the girls enjoyed them but next time I'll re think the filling for next time. 

I followed this recipe in the humming bird bakery book but would make a few changes for when I make them next - 


30g butter
1/2 small red onion
360g plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
250g chedder cheese, grated
220ml whole milk
1 egg
130g baby spinach leaves


Preheat the oven at 170°C or Gas Mark 3.


Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat, then fry the onion until cooked. leave to cool. 


Put the flour,baking powder, cayenne and cheese in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the milk and egg together, then slowly pour into the flour mixture and beat with ta handheld electric whisk until all the ingredients are well mixed. (by this point, my mix was basically more like a dough than a mixture! I had to use my hands to mix it all in with the flour..)


Stir in the onion and spinach with a wooden spoon until evenly dispersed.


Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until two third full and bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until deep golden and the sponge bounces back when touched. (I had to ball together the ingredients to break it up into the cases. After doing it once, I now know I'd use my silicone cases make them and then put them in cases after they've been cooked as they get totally stuck) A skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean. (the masses of cheese make this hard to judge!) Leave the muffins to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely. 


Success! 

Tom came over the day I made them and ate so many of them that I only got to try one right at the last moment. I think they worked out pretty well! You can really taste the Cayenne Pepper. Next time I'm going to make them with ham instead of spinach as they boys are fiends for cheese and ham toasties so therefore they can't use allergies and vegetables as their excuse not to try one!

Give them a go! They're surprisingly yummy and dead filling. 

Over and out! 

x  

Back on it

It's that time of year, school, university, college; whatever it is, it's all starting. It's all go. Our classes always start a week earlier than everyone. At the time it's a bit of a nuisance, other uni's have their freshers weeks and parties when we've got classes. But it's amazing at the end of the year, we finish so much earlier than everyone. 

Having had a Summer of working full time, I was pretty knackered so allowed myself to have 2 weeks off for freshers week and settling into the flat. It's been amazing. 

 

I took my mum for tea and cakes at Eteaket after having a lovely day together

getting facials. Tom and I discovered that his old local, Carters, have recently 

invested in an old school space invaders game table! It's great.

Having had a chance to settle in it's been great being back in Dundee. As you can see from the post below, I took part in that Brewdog cooking competition. It turned out that I came first and won a case of the beer I cooked with. Some of the ideas people had were amazing! You can check them out here. 

 

Tom and I took his Gran to Dunoon on the ferry, it was lovely. We also

popped to the newly refurbished museum in Edinburgh. It's amazing!

It's been amazing being back in the house to see everyone, especially Cassie. I don't think I realised how much I miss her company over Summer! 

Today, I'm meant to be researching stuff for one of my modules. You'd think after a whole Summer away from uni I would be okay with getting back into it but I'm struggling! Also, it's quite hard to figure out where to start with this research. Anyone been to any interesting exhibitions recently? We've to look into interactive exhibits.. 

Hope alls well! 

Over and out!

x

BrewBake!

From twitter, Brewdog announced the #BrewBake 'Cook something this weekend using a BrewDog in the recipe, post a picture, top 5 win a batch of the beer they cooked with!'


Here's what I made.

Tokyo* Brownies

3 ½ oz milk chocolate

2 tablespoons instant espresso

8 tablespoons of butter
4 eggs, at room temp

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup Brewdog Tokyo*

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup walnuts, halved and toasted lightly

- Preheat oven to 180 (Gas mark 4), once hot, pop in the walnuts until just toasted (about 5 minutes). 

- Sift together the flour, spices, and cocoa powder. 

- Meanwhile, melt the chocolate, espresso and butter in a bowl over boiling water, add the beer and stir to combine, then let cool. 
- Beat together the eggs and sugar (white & brown) until thick and shiny. 
- Keep beating on low while adding flour mixture and then add the cooled chocolate & beer mix. 
- Finish with the vanilla. Do not over mix. Fold in the chocolate chips. 
- Pour into a buttered and floured 9 x 13 pan and sprinkle the walnuts on top. Bake for 35 minutes.

Tattoos

So this week I've had nothing to do at work, so I'm mainly getting paid to troll the internet. Which, hey, I'm not going to complain about, but it's getting a bit boring.. 


It's not been good for my lack of money either, it's encouraging me to look for new things for my flat online. I've come across some beautiful vintage suitcases at a sale room that I walk passed every day for work. The same one that sold those beautiful padded chairs I posted a photo of a few posts back. Anyway, I'm buying at least one of those for 'attractive' storage in my room. I own a lot of clutter and like to hide it when I'm not using it. Makes sense to have something pretty to keep them in! So hopefully going up to pick one or two of them in the next few days. Excited!

I LOVE this little minimal teacup drawing.

Very cute.

Anyway, in this who trolling session, I've been avidly searching out tattoo ideas. I've been considering a tattoo for months now. Well more than that but I've had a solid idea for a while now. I just don't have the guts to go for it. A lot of things worry me about it but I really want one.  I've always said that if I do get one, the conditions of its placement would be that it's not visible in my wedding dress and say, at future interviews. This means it has to be central on my body. My idea was to get a teacup in relation to our engagement at Disneyland on the teacups, and generally to represent my sheer love of tea. After a lot of thought about placements, I have decided my ribs is perfect (but meant to be really sore..). It's hidden but can be shown when I want it shown. Certain dresses might show it, some might not. 


What I need now, is advice! What do you think? Do you think I should go for it?


Also, the other small problem is that my parents totally freakin' hate tattoos! They said if I ever got one, they'd disown me. Which is extremely dramatic and probably not true. But This means before I did it, I'd have to convince them it was okay. Is it worth it? I don't want them to hate me, but I know they couldn't do that anyway! 

This photo makes me look dirty..

But I still like it.

In other news, we went to T in the Park on Saturday, as I said in the last post. It was a good laugh, but we got in for free and we weren't especially fussed for a lot of the music so really it was just a nice day out. We got to see our mates we rarely manage to see and seen their band, Woodenbox, play. Which was ace. Also, I managed to convince Tom to come to see Beyonce for a song or two which meant I could call the lovely Polly and leave her a voicemail of Single Ladies. She was very chuffed with that :) 

Last night I received this lovely engagement present last night from Tom's parents. It's a charm of two jigsaw parts, one gold and one silver. Sorry the photo isn't fantastic. I can't get a great photo of it as it's small. I thought it was such a lovely thing. I've added it onto my necklace I got for my 21st so it's safe. Don't trust my charm bracelet to be honest. It's a nightmare. Anyone got any recommendations for a new charm bracelet? I need a new bracelet to hold my charms and need to get them soldered on to keep them safe. I've lost a ton of them, even when they've been soldered on! Nightmare. 


Hope everyones enjoying Summer! 
Over and out.
x

Money = The Devil

It's official money is the devil! I didn't realise how much we all rely on money till I lost my bank card, haven't been paid, have a festival to go to, no cash for my lunch at work and no bank near by. This is an utter nightmare. 

This was the beautiful view we had at dinner

on Monday from Loch Fyne, Edinburgh.

I'm currently at work stressing out abou money but I think blogging will get it off my chest and stop me stressing. I am all finished my work and today and yesterday my boss hasn't been in, I don't know where he is. I need something to do but all the projects I've been working on are either finished or have been passed onto the coders. I can't leave as I need the money, I can't do nothing, thats boring. So I'm blogging :) 


I was waiting for my mates to put up photos from a night out I went to last week to blog again but they're not up! Bummer. It was the launch of a mates night in Edinburgh called Pet Rescue and it was such an amazing night! As it's called Pet Rescue, there was a lot of animal themed stuff around but not only that, there was a face painter! I was well into this and was one of the first few to go for it. I was a Tiger for the evening. I will put up a photo soon enough. But anyone from or near Edinburgh should head along to the next night. It's at the Store and is on the last Saturday of the month. Get on it! 

Works been pretty great at the moment. I'm starting to get some of my work actually launched. I'm working with the Homeless World Cup at the moment and they're about to load up my landing page design to their Facebook and profile image I did for them! It's pretty exciting to see my work actually live! Like them to hear about some exciting news about this years cup in Paris!


Some exciting news from my week is that I won tickets to T in the Park this weekend! I'm so excited. It's just a day ticket but it's to the day that is actually sold out and Beyonce is playing. To be honest, I'm not a huge Beyonce fan, but it's going to be a pretty good show so I want to at least see one song! Tom's not convinced though. Other than that, I'll get to see The Strokes again, along with Primal Scream and many more! I'm so excited to be going to a festival because I was starting to lose hope for this Summer! Shame the weather forecast is meant to be absolutely horrible! Oh well, it'll still be fun. 


Hope all is well where you all are. 
Over and out. 
x

Ok guys..

It's time to admit, I'm not the best at this whole blogging thing.. I'm not going to say sorry this time. I'm just gonna get back on it when I can, not promise myself I'll do it every week, or even every month, I just want to do it when I can manage it around everything else.

I need one of these in my life!

Right, back to it. After my last post, Tom and I went to Spain to have a weeks holiday. It was the most relaxing thing we've ever done. We were staying at my flatmate, Cassie's Gran's flat in Gran Alacant. It was beautiful and we were on our own so free to go see whatever we want, sleep when we want and eat when we want. Amazing. We spent the week driving about, reading and relaxing in the sun. It was beautiful. We came home and realised that we hadn't talked to anyone except when ordering food, which, might I add, I was terrible at. I know absolutely nothing in Spanish, neither does Tom. But regardless, it was amazing.  

I've been a busy bee recently. My job is at full swing and I'm loving it! Although, it's really taking it out of me. I've been so knackered recently. But it's funding my lifestyle pretty well! I also got the good news yesterday, that not only do they want to keep me on during term time at uni working long distance around uni, they want me to come back next summer and the summer after that. He offered me the job for after I graduate. It's so exciting. It means I'm going to be getting so much experience and I'm already working towards a definite graduate job! I'm so happy. So for the last 2 years of uni, I'm going to be working here. No more scrimping and saving with having no job. I can officially work and have nights out.  Also, I finally got my engagement ring resized, in fact, it had to be completely overhauled. It's now as good as new and I don't need to worry about it every time I wash my hands! 

Since Spain, I've been doing my rounds of Degree Shows at Art Schools. Some of the stuff I've seen were amazing. Some, quite frankly, weird. 

   

The other night a bunch of us went to an amazing Indian restaurant in Edinburgh called Kismot. We went with the whole intention of making my brother and our mate do the world renowned challenge of the Kismot Killer! It's the hottest curry in Scotland and only 2 people have managed this one. They've upped their game since last year and they've made it even spicier! Anyway, Andy and Dave went to battle and are still suffering as a result. It was so hot that Andy's eyes were uncontrollably streaming and he spewed after it. Yum. Anyway, neither finished but Andy beat Dave which was what most of us were betting on. 

It's so extremo that they had to sign

this before eating. 

(Click it, read it through.. 

It's rough)

Hope you're all well, sorry for the extremely huge post.

Over and out. 

x

Shh..

I'm meant to be sat working right now. I'm working from home today as not feeling too hot and there wasn't anyone else in the office. But anyway, I got a bit distracted by a few things online. 

One of the main distractions being twitter informing me of Cupcake Decorating Classes with Bibi's Bakery in Edinburgh. It's pretty pricey but you do get a fair bit for the money. It's £55 for the course which lasts 3 and a half hours. It includes a 2 and a half hour long lesson in cake decorating, which includes tips on perfect piped icing and the trick to a flat cake, among other tricks and tips. Along with the lesson, it includes a 2 course lunch and a glass of Moet. It's all done in Tigerlily on George Street, Edinburgh. 

I'm in the mood to bake at the moment! I made this amazing cake the other day, it was a hit with everyone too. It's a Caramel & Apple Loaf. I just stumbled upon the recipe online while bored on a bus and went straight to the shops and got the ingredients! Get the recipe here if you fancy trying it. 

       

Tom and I went to an open mic night at a local bar called Boda. Out mate usually runs it but she took the night off and got another guy to do it. Tom went and played a lovely song called "Speed & Sound of Loneliness" and did it amazingly. The night ended badly, with the guy running the night being a dick to Tom and we left. 

Right now I'm totally looking forward to my week in the Spanish sunshine with my lovely man. The only thing standing in my way is 3 more days at work and packing.. We leave on Monday! Well excited. 

Over and out.

x

It's All Over

So, it's official. My second year at uni is now over. Had my exam and presentation last week and moved out yesterday. It was odd moving out so early but thanks to this job I'll actually be making some money straight away! 

Had an epic party Tuesday night to celebrate the end of the year and my flatmates birthday. We surprised him with a sushi shaped cake and some speakers, he was over the moon, the wee cutie. On Friday, Clare and I went for a beautiful cycle to celebrate uni being over. We went from Dundee to Broughty Ferry. It's was a lovely day and once we got there we had a picnic and went to the famous ice cream shop. I had nutella swirl, it was the best. We defo deserved it, we ended up cycling a good 16 km. All while everyone else in our class were sitting in the pub getting wasted. 

Got home with everything I own in my tiny little car last night and got rushed out the door to a meal out with the family, Tom and my bro's girlfriend Anneka. It was a lovely dinner, a stupid amount of wine, and then we went back to the house. Had a load of banter and watched Lion King and sang along. Silly people.


Woke up this afternoon to a BBQ in the sun. Was a lovely, lazy day. This was all to celebrate my dad's birthday, we don't just do things like that every weekend. Although, I well want to go canoeing next weekend with him if it's sunny! 

My cat loves sleeping in plant pots in the sun. 

In other news, Tom and I booked a totally last minute holiday away to Spain. Heading away two weeks away on Monday for a relaxing week. It's a really cheep holiday too, we're staying at Cassie's gran's flat in Gran Alacant. Excited much!


Hope everyones getting as much sun as we're getting! It's been an epic week. 
Over and out. 
x

Long Time, No See!

I'm going to brush past my blogging fail pretty swiftly. I've been busy. Lots of things have been 

happening.. So in the last 3/4 weeks since my last post :

- I got that job! 

- I moved back to Edinburgh and have moved into Tom's flat for the Summer. 

- I've been revising.. sort of..

- Went to a beautiful wedding. 

- Got a parking ticket. Which, might I add, I'm choosing to ignore!

- Went to Cramond Island!

   

It's been a busy few weeks hence the severe lacking in revision.. Which oddly enough isn't worrying me for some reason. Which is surprising after how worried I was about this exam about 4 weeks ago. Guess all I needed was a break, or I just need a kick up the butt. Guess I'll find out on Tuesday morning though.. 

As for my new job, well thats great. I'm now working as an Interface designer at Jelly Media Technologies. It's amazing experience generally but it's turned out that I'm doing exactly what I love doing at uni but for a company, AND getting paid to do it! I'm loving it. So at the moment I'm working 4 days a week there and getting settled in to this whole, 'working in an office' kinda thing. It's a big change from pulling pints all Summer. Which I'm totally going to miss but it's nice to have the security of working 4/5 days a week and always having a weekend off! First two weeks have passed so quickly and sent off my first project to a client the other day and they sent me back some great feedback and general praise. Was well chuffed. 

Last weekend, Tom and I went to a big family wedding. His cousin was getting married and it was absolutely beautiful. It was at a lovely venue, a house in Markinch called Balbirnie House. The photos are going to be amazing as it was such a lovely sunny day and they were taken out in the gardens. It's given us some little ideas for our wedding. Big family events like those make our engagement feel more real! So many people were like "Oh, it'll be you guys next!". 

   

But anyway, I really hope everyones enjoying their Easter weekend if they've got a holiday. I'm off work for the week till I finish uni next Friday. In fact, I'm totally hoping that the presentations we have on the 29th finish as early as possible so we can go home and play the Royal Wedding Drinking Game! Would quite the fine way to finishing a year at uni! 

   

Don't eat too much chocolate! 

Over and out. 

x

Time Speeds Up..

Do any of you guys feel like time speeds up at this time of year? I mean It's suddenly April tomorrow! I am officially half way though my degree and only have a presentation and an exam to get past till it's summer. It's getting a bit ridiculous. 


Not that I'm complaining. I'm stoked to be heading home to see Tom for basically a solid 5 months! Summer is fantastic in Edinburgh too. Worth checking out if you've never visited. But 5 months off uni means, 5 months working. I do love earning money for myself and being free to go out and drink with mates and having only a small restriction of having a shift at work. But the unfortunate thing is I don't think I'm getting my old job at the pub with Tom back as my bloody brother took my job! Nightmare. 


Good news though, I heard back from a guy I've known for a while who mentioned he needed some design work done at his company over the summer. He's asked me to pull together any work I've done at uni since coming and show him what experience I have with similar projects. If it all works out, I will be designing an interface for an app his company is developing. I'm well excited at the prospect of getting real world experience and it'll maybe boost my confidence in my work and creativity. It sounds ridiculous that a design student doesn't think she is creative doesn't it? Well I am ridiculous because that's what I think, but if I get this placement I'll hopefully prove myself wrong! 


Other than that, nothing exciting has happened this week. I've been blogging like a mad man on my uni blog and tweeting a load about the Aphasia one to try and raise awareness. It's working as the site views have gone up considerably. Can't say that about my uni one, but it's not one of those things that need to be seen. I'll be uploading my folio work on their if anyones curious. Not till the weekend though. 


One lovely thing that did happen was that, I received a random bunch of flowers. It turned out it was from Tom's boss congratulating us on our engagement. They're beautiful. 

Over and out.
x

Help us raise awareness!

You guys might notice the new addition to the side bar of my blog. Please take a few moments out of your days to take a look at this site. 


It's a project we've been doing for university and Understand Aphasia is our group's attempt to help raise the awareness of Aphasia and spread the word to anyone and everyone. Other groups have created installations around the city, made training packs for work places and created flyers for city centres. The blog we have created gives readers a basic understanding of what Aphasia is and how it affects people. 


Aphasia is a communication impairment which often happens as a result of a stroke. Strokes can happen to people of any age and for no reason. By raising the awareness of Aphasia we can help sufferers recover quicker and they can be understood a lot more. 


I know this is nothing like a usual post but I'm posting it everywhere I possibly can to spread the word. 


As part of the project we were also asked to shove together a basic Public Information Film for the cause. Each group took a different approach and it was quite a hard thing to make a video for as it affects people in different ways and we didn't feel right acting as though we had Aphasia. Instead of that approach, we did a short story board.




It would be greatly appreciated if anyone, who would like to help with this cause, could post up any one of the banners included in the website. Or even just link to this post or the website. 


This project has been a great learning experience for me and although the projects finishing this week, I feel I'm quite likely to keep the blog going and keep in touch with the group of people we've been working with. 


Over and out.
x

Brew Dog!

So, I'm defo going to skim straight past my absence on from blogging in the last 2 weeks. It's been rather hectic and busy and I've generally been lacking in motivation to do anything. Saying that, I've not really done a lot worth talking about in my last 12 or so days. I'm looking back and seeing me just watching a massive amount of movies! 


Anyway, back on to other chat. I had an amazing impromptue trip home on Friday to see Tom and to get some computing help from my dad. I successfully got all my work done super quickly and got to see Tom for ages. The new Brew Dog pub has just opened in Edinburgh and I'd been dying to go. A horrible fact about me is that I'm a right lad when it comes to beer. I like beer and good real ale at that! Brew Dog is fantastic and their slogan is 'Beer For Punks'. What's not to love? 

I'm on a bit of a diet at the moment though so I was only allowed 1 pint and then we left to go have dinner. Tom is without a doubt one of the best cooks I know, other than my mum of course, but he's fantastic. It wasn't the most diet friendly meal but all I'm telling myself is that it's not a real diet. Basically I've cut out bread, cider and beer from my diet along with unnecessary snacking (which is the hardest part!). But it's been okay, obviously I had to make an exception on the beer ban for the Brew Dog pub but it's back in force. Also, along with that I've been taking the stairs up the 5 flights of stairs to our flat instead of the lift. Not this week though as I've been horribly over taken by a cold and can't muster the energy for that many stairs yet. But the cold also helped with this whole not eating too much though, I had no appetite for 2 days solid. I know, not the best approach! 

I also received some amazing mail all the way from Korea thanks to a mate of mine. She's been away for over a year and has missed my last 2 birthdays and sent me a wee Korean themed package. In it she sent an amazing Hello Kitty stamp set! It's the best thing ever. 

I don't know if I mentioned a couple of weeks back, but I finally decided to buy a decal for my mac. I'd been deliberating for ages whether to get one or not. The thing worrying me was whether it would leave a mark on my mac after I took it off. Turns out they're amazing and don't leave any trace of anything being there. So I spent hours scrolling through Etsy for one and finally decided on the retro apple mac logo for the apple sign on my computer. 

As I'm a ridiculous perfectionist with a lot of thing, I'm not very happy with it as the stalk is too small and the apple is too big for the actual apple on my computer. (it's not obvious in the picture.. everyone says it's not obvious though, so I'm getting used to it.) Has anyone else got one similar? Did yours fit your apple okay? (sounds pretty silly!)

Check out this cute wee drawing Cassie made for me! It's now made it's way to my wall of lovely things above my bed along with photos of my childhood and grandparents. Thats how much I love it! 

It's Tom proposing on the Teacups! 

HOW CUTE?!

Photo spam from my week! 

What good is a bouncy castle

if it's floating?

The weather on my train journey back to 

uni was beautiful. 

Look how smart he looks! 

Manager Tom!

St Paddy's Day is a big thing at our uni!

Hope you're all well! 

Over and out. 

x