Recent Events

As I haven't had the chance to post on here recently, it would seem there is rather a lot to catch you up on, so here is a whistle-stop tour of what's being going on in the Kennard household...

Firstly, we had Pancake Day didn't we! I liked to imagine myself eating them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, fork in one hand and flipping with the other, getting some cool, artsy photos of Josh flipping pancakes and whatnot. The reality was we didn't have any lemons, and therefore pancake proceedings couldn't begin until an impromptu shopping trip was made, also I can't flip pancakes (that was an ambitious thought on my imagination's part), and it turns out taking flipping action shots is really HARD, especially when the subject of the photos has an incredible repertoire of odd faces which they seem to save especially for Shrove Tuesday!

Josh is a maple syrup man, I'm just your traditional lemon and sugar type.

In fact, I'm so kind I'm going to give you the recipe for these bad boys :) It's a Jamie Oliver classic, I used self-raising flour as this makes them a bit thicker, more like the American ones, but if you want more crepe-like ones you can swap it for plain flour. I really like this recipe, it uses cups - which I usually hate - but basically he explains that as long as you use the same cup for the flour and milk then Bob's your uncle, nice and easy.

One Cup Pancakes

Ingredients: (Makes 6)

1 egg

1 cup self-raising flour

1 cup milk

15g butter to cook (maybe not even this much)

Method:

1. Crack the egg into a mixing bowl, add the flour and milk and stir until all ingredients are blended and you have a nice, smooth batter.

2. Put a frying pan over a medium heat and add half the butter. When melted, spoon one ladle of the pancake batter into the frying pan. If you want plate sized pancakes, tilt the frying pan to spread the batter out.

3. Cook for 1-2 minutes until the underside starts to go a golden brown and little bubbles appear on the top. Then FLIP!

4. When both sides are cooked, gently slide onto a plate and serve up with the topping of your choice! You can then use the rest of the butter once the pan starts to look a bit dry to cook the rest of the pancakes.

So that was Pancake Day, we then had Valentines Day. Being an old, married couple we didn't really do anything for Valentines, and I even had to remind Josh on our food shop to buy me a card, then had to close my eyes as we packed the bags! I did receive a lovely bunch of snowdrops a couple of days later though, plus a lone crocus :) They were too cute to miss out on a photo opportunity.

 Then we went on a picnic up on Highdown Hill, the idea was to go to the gardens where it would be lovely and warm, and there would be lovely Spring flowers everywhere, but the reality was the gardens are closed at this time of year, and the wind decided to hit the hill big time that day. Nevertheless we did get to use our Christmas picnic hamper, so there's a silver lining for you.

Right, now I think this is the last thing I need to catch you up on - pearl barley. Barley's answer to rice. My grandma likes to pass down her old Waitrose magazines, which is awesome because they always have delicious things in them, and this was one of the recipes we tired out the other night. Flipping delectable. And thus here is recipe number two for today...

Baked Barley Risotto with Peas and Bacon
Ingredients: (Supposed to serve 4, served 2 here!)
250g pearl barley
500ml hot chicken stock
4 rashers bacon
3 sausages, thinly chopped (a yummy addition)
1 leek (or could use onion)
1 tsp olive oil
2 tbsp thyme
100g frozen peas
Pepper to season
Parmasan cheese to top

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200C/GM 6. In a large frying pan over a high heat, cook the leek, bacon and sausage in the oil for about 5 minutes.
2. Add in the chicken stock and barley, and bring the the boil. I like to add the thyme at this point too, so the flavour gets all up in there.
3. Transfer to a baking dish and cook in the oven for 15 mins.
4. Add the frozen peas and stir them in. Cook for another 10-15 minutes until the stock has been absorbed and the barley is cooked.
5. Season with pepper, top with some parmesan and serve.

Wow, this has been a long post, so informative too! Happy Springtime :)

Amy x

Sausage Rolls/Wheels

How do you make a sausage roll?

Stick some wheels on it.

NO. That is absolutely not the way to do it, this is how....

Ingredients: (Makes 14)
450 g/1Ib sausage meat (I just de-skinned some sausages for mine)
450g/1Ib ready-rolled puff pastry (much easier to buy from the shop that to make your own!)
1 egg, beaten
Pepper to season

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6.
2. Put all your sausage meat into a bowl and season with some cracked black pepper (I don't like adding salt, but you can if you so wish), mix it all up with your hands to ensure it is all blended together.
3. Roll out your pastry into a long rectangle and place the sausage meat in a cylindrical shape down the middle of the pastry. I even took pictures to show you how!

4. Beat the egg and then brush over the pastry on one side.
5. Fold the other side of the pastry over to meat the eggy side, ensuring the pastry is tightly wrapped around the sausage meat, and press down to seal.
6. Cut your giant sausage roll down into 14 mini-sausage rolls (I cut mine a bit too thin, hence the 'sausage wheels' name given to them, so I would suggest cutting yours about 3-4 cm wide).

7. Pop your sausage rolls onto a baking tray and use the rest of your egg to egg-wash the pastry, before putting them into the oven for around 25 minutes, or until they are cooked through.

Pipsqueak :)

Amy x

Peaks and troughs

What is this?! Two blogs in one week!? Deep.
So life is full of highs and lows, something bad happens, but then something good happens and it's counteracted, and vice versa. It's the same in our flat, usually when Josh adds something weird i.e a rabbit skull (low), and then I add something to balance it out i.e a candle (high). This time, its something a bit closer to heart - our herb table is dying :(

I was so proud when we purchased our herbs a mere two weeks ago - finally we were going to have some foliage in our house, we were on our way to becoming gardening extraordinaires! Unfortunately, after only a week we noticed our coriander was suffering, and not even discretely - it had dramatically sprawled itself over the table - clearly the herbs were greener on the other side. This was swiftly followed by the basil - a refreshing burst of green in amongst the less exciting herbs - until a couple of days ago when it followed in the footsteps of the star-crossed coriander.

They are literally dropping like flies. Low point.

But this is where I get to the peak - we have a new and exciting addition to our flat which counteracts the sadness of the passing herbs - we have windowsill flowers! (This is the point where I realise how dull my life must sound to everyone else)

We are now the proud owners of actual proper outdoor flowers, and they're alive! Plus they're going to grow up to be daffodils and hyancinths, how flipping pretty and Spring-y is that?! The only thing I'm sad about is that they haven't got their flowers yet so I can't show you an impressive picture of how awesome they look, but don't fear, I will in good time.

So that's my lesson for the week, you've got to take the highs with the lows, and when all else fails, make your own highs! Not in a weird way, buy yourself some flowers or something.

Amy x

For Ed

This post is dedicated to Ed, one of my most avid followers who has frequently reminded me to update my blog in recent times - I've done it Ed!

So there's rather a lot to catch up on, I'm on my final school placement at the moment in Pulborough, which is absolutely amazing but does mean I don't really have much free time to keep you all up to date, or to have any glimmer of a social life at all! But with only 3 weeks left (and a lot of prompting from Ed), I have decided to give a whistle stop tour of everything that has been happening over the past few weeks/months.

Firstly I celebrated my 22nd birthday, which I was approaching with a feeling of dismay until I discovered Taylor Swift's song '22', which really put it all into perspective for me and quite literally turned my life around.

We have also celebrated Christmas, which in my opinion is just the best day of the year. Cheesy as this may be, I just love the fact that everyone is so nice to each other, even if just for that one day. Plus there's the excitement of seeing people's faces when they open their presents and the amazing food and fairy lights and decorations everywhere, the Christmas CD which is played exclusively from 1st December (much to Josh's frustration) - I'm basically in my element.

Out of principle, we bought our tree on the 1st December, and it's actually still up. I like switching the tree lights on and watching films in 'the perfect light', and it makes me feel happy to walk into the lounge early in the mornings and see it sat there by the window, and even Josh has decided it won't do us any harm to go against the flow and keep it up for as long as possible, so for the time being it's staying up :)

I made that wreath! To be fair it looks a lot better in the photo than it ever did in real life.

Our flat has started looking so homely as more and more things get added, look how good it looks now!

Josh and I also had a go at a Christmas Eve dinner as we spent Christmas day with the family, and made some cute gingerbread cookies and mince pie pinwheels as well, although I forgot to take a picture of those so there won't be any recipes going up any time soon!

Non-Christmassy things have been added around the flat too - it's definitely gaining a personality, and compromise is still a prominent feature which can be observed in various spots!

Also another thing I need to tell you - we went to Devon! We stayed in an amazing hotel called the Horn of Plenty (clearly chosen by Josh!) which was right near the border to Cornwall, so we visited loads of fossilly beaches and pretty towns and ate good food, and went to the Eden Project there. Now, this is the part where I want to show you loads of amazing pictures that I took while we were there. The only problem is our camera focus was playing up so nearly all the pictures we took are blurry, plus the battery decided to conk out after about 5 photos. So here's my best effort, it's literally the only photographic evidence of our holiday!

But apart from that I think all there is left to say for now is Happy (belated) Christmas and hope you have a great New Year :)

Amy x

Pumpkin time

So Friday night was pumpkin date night, there had been many obstacles leading up to this day, but it finally arrived, the pumpkins were purchased, the tools were wealded and the carving was able to take place!

As you can see, this prestigious event is taken very seriously in our household, here we see the contestants warming up ready for the competition.

And here we see the end results - guess which is which :)

Josh wasn't particularly happy with his in the end, even though I quite enjoyed the 'jail' look it had going on, but he has been filled with an even greater sense of competition for next year as a result.

Mine was perhaps a bit too fiddly. It was based vaguely on my design from last year, just on a smaller and more regimented scale, but it has become clear to me that the reason not many people carve intricate pumpkin designs is because it is actually very difficult, which I found out for myself. Several times glue was involved to fix a diamond that had lost a side, and this even resulted in a super glue explosion, in which my entire trouser leg (and indeed actual leg) was covered. Both trouser and leg still bare the scars of this mishap.

Nevertheless it was definitely enjoyable, and will definitely be becoming a Kennard tradition :) And in the meantime they just look nice sat in the corner of our lounge, before they go mouldy and gross!

Hope you enjoyed this, and as for the winner, I'll let you be the judge.

Amy x

Orange Loaf Cake

Ooh a recipe, haven't had one of those in a while!

One day while we were on our honeymoon, Josh and I stopped at a little bakery and bought an orange loaf cake for lunch, and it was divine. So I decided to try and recreate it, by doing the following:

Ingredients:
125g butter
250ml caster sugar (don't ask why this recipe used ml, just use a measuring jug and accept it!)
3 eggs
Zest and juice of 1 orange
250ml plain flour
1tsp baking powder

Method:
Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the eggs one by one and mix.
Pop in the flour and continue to stir until it's all mixed in, then add the baking powder.
Then add the zest, juice and baking powder and pour into a lined loaf tin (I used baking paper to line mine).
Finally put it in the bottom of a preheated oven at 175 degrees and bake for 50 minutes until golden brown.

It's that easy, and really delicious as well, goes down well with a mug of Earl Grey as demonstrated below. In fact you could probably even put some Lady Grey in the cake for added citrussy/tea-ey yummyness, now that's an idea!

You've probably noticed the pumpkins loitering in the background too, I carved a pumpkin last year which was actually the reason for starting this blog, and Josh & I intend to carve them tonight. I had a bit of a fiasco last week, in that by the time I went to buy the pumpkins they were all gone! Luckily Josh managed to find these beauties in Portobello Market, so we're having a competition to see who's carving is best, and hopefully will make a tradition out of it too :) The tools have been imported to the flat, the designs have been pondered & I'll make sure I pop them on here for your viewing pleasure.

Happy cake eating and belated Halloween,

Amy x

Compromise

I've probably mentioned it before, mine and Josh's tastes are not the same. In the slightest. So decorating our flat has been interesting at times to say the least. However we have discovered this wonderful thing called compromise - which I think by definition means you choose something you both agree on. Our definition is slightly different, our compromise is based on Josh adding something he likes to the flat, and then me adding something I like to even it out, and vice versa.

Hence our fireplace:

   

Much as this may surprise you, I actually wasn't massively excited about Josh's idea to put a nutty professor-esque light bulb into our fireplace, complete with copper pipes. Which is why we now have a lovely bunch of flowers in a pretty jug sitting underneath it :) Compromise.

This is what the fireplace looked like when we first bought the flat - an ugly, boarded-up square in the wall with blue LED lights fitted badly into the bottom to give a disgusting uplight effect. Below shows what it is beginning to look like now, though it was taken a few days ago so it doesn't show our newest lighting addition. Josh managed to take the plaster off the back and side of the fireplace to reveal the lovely brick behind it, which we were going to do to the whole wall but have since decided to postpone it due to the amount of dust involved!

It still needs some work, a nice mantelpiece to hang Christmas decorations on and maybe a mirror or a big picture above it, but for now it looks so cosy and we're actually both happy with it (I'm even warming to the light bulb).

And as for the gorgeous flowers, obviously couldn't finish off the post without a picture of them!

That's all for now, I'll do some more flat-blogs soon I think, to show off what's been happening :)

Amy x