Happy Monday!
I don’t know where the weekend went – it feels like Friday was just yesterday! While I didn’t have a particularly productive weekend, it was great spending time with friends and hanging out in the sunshine… let’s hold on to summer as long as possible!
I hope you had a wonderful weekend and are rested for the week ahead – if it’s anything like mine, it’s bound to be a busy one! Here are five things to get your Monday off to a great start…
Our vertical garden has been up and running for a couple of weeks now, and we’re feeling pretty chuffed with how it’s going – the herbs are running wild, the dahlias are covered in buds about to burst open, and all but one of the veggies we planted are thriving.
In fact the little is garden is growing so well that we’ve already started plucking things from it for our cooking – our home-grown coriander made a star appearance in a channa masala we made last week, the lettuce has made many a salad, and the mint has been a refreshing addition to drinks.
But while I frequently run my hands through the basil (I can’t get enough of the smell!) we were yet to actually make anything with it. After noticing just how large it had grown while watering the garden this morning I decided enough was enough, and I plucked a handful to use in some savoury baking this afternoon.
Ever feel like cookies but can’t be bothered rolling all those little balls of dough? Yip, me too.
Not only does it take a bit of time to scoop and shape the dough, you can only fit so many on a single baking tray so you end up with a bit of a rotation going on. And you’re left with sticky hands – yuck!
Don’t get me wrong – I do love a good cookie. But sometimes you just don’t have the energy to go through all the rolling… you just want to skip to the baking (and eating!). That’s where this recipe comes in… it’s a cookie, without any of the rolling!
Yip, it’s a cookie cake! One GIANT (and I mean giant) cookie, eaten in slices just like a regular cake.
Happy Monday!
Gosh, wasn’t the weekend absolutely boiling? I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt so hot – Auckland was so, so sticky! But I shouldn’t complain – the weather was beautiful, so we spent lots of time out in our little backyard tending to our vertical garden and relaxing in the sunshine. Other than the heat, it was pretty wonderful.
I hope you had a lovely weekend too. Here are five things to get your week off to a great start…
What better excuse to bake a cake than a birthday?
It was one of my best friend’s birthday’s earlier this week, which we celebrated with dinner and drinks last night – the perfect time for cake! The only trick was deciding what type, and how to decorate it.
The ‘what’ was an easy decision, and I quickly threw together a moist chocolate cake with light vanilla filling – one of my all time favourite combinations. The bonus? Both the cake and filling and incredibly easy to make – perfect for these sticky summer days when you just can’t stand being in the kitchen too long. Click here for the recipe.
Happy Monday!
Wow – what a week last week was, it’s crazy just how much work exhausts you when you’ve been on holiday (first world problem, I know!) Come Friday night both Kevin and I were exhausted, so Valentine’s Day was spent nestled on the couch with fists full of chocolate, glasses of champagne and a DVD rolling.
The rest of the weekend was just as relaxing – just what we needed to face the new week! Hope you’re weekend was everything you needed too. Here are five things to help get your week off to a great start…
Since we moved into our current house back in October, Kevin and I have had plans to set up a beautiful vertical garden on the back fence. It’s the perfect spot – our bedroom windows look straight out onto it, and it’s sunny there all day long.
But it took us awhile to decide what kind of vertical garden we wanted – there are just so many options! Pallet gardens, terracotta pot gardens, climbing gardens, stacked tubs… just search ‘vertical gardens’ in Pinterest and you’ll get an idea of what we were up against.
But then we spotted Woolly Pockets on a DIY show and instantly fell in love with the concept – the pockets themselves are sturdy and subtle, and eventually (providing you pick the right plants) will become hidden in a forest of plants. There was only one problem – the price!
In case you couldn’t tell from all the pink, hearts and roses popping up in shops, Valentine’s Day is just around the corner – only two sleeps away in fact!
I must admit, Valentine’s Day kind of crept up on me this year – blame it on our wedding – so my window for making themed treats was pretty short. So short in fact, that I decided not to bake anything pink or heart shaped at all!
But that doesn’t mean I didn’t do some Valentine’s baking. Instead of going down the themed route, I decided I would be better off spending my time making an absolutely decadent treat that Kevin would absolutely love. That means a treat made from caramel and chocolate – that’s where these salted caramel and chocolate tartlets come in.
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