St. Patrick’s Day Nails

I hope everyone had a good Paddy’s Day yesterday. The weather stayed good for the parade here, no rain for us! After spending over an hour styling my sister’s hair into a Jedward style skyscrapper, I had just about enough time to lash a few coats of nail varnish on to add to my green attire for the day.

Not the neatest but the best I could do with the small amount of time I had! I used MUA Nail Quakes in Green Glitter. These are actually ‘crackle’ style nail polishes but I put on 3 layers to get a good coverage and finished with a top coat.

Outside in natural light, waiting for the parade to start! Hope you all had a great day celebrating!

Baileys Milkshake

St. Patrick’s Day has arrived and maybe you’ve been too busy to whip up some to Brown Soda Bread or some Green Velvet cupcakes. Fear not, this Bailey’s Milkshake is quick and tastes great!

Ingredients

-Vanilla icecream (or whatever flavour you like, vanilla is best for picking up the Baileys though. Mint would be good if you like Shamrock Shakes)

-Baileys (I chose Hazelnut flavour,but again it’s up to you)

-Milk

-Green food colouring (optional)

-Whipped cream (optional)

Method

No really recipe as such, just add the ingredients into a blender and whizz until you get your desired thickness. Top off with some whipped cream and enjoy!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, where ever you may be! Last year I made a post about why it’s great to be Irish. And it still is just as great!

Brown Soda Bread

My boyfriend had been bugging me for months to make him some soda bread. My Dad’s birthday Red Velvet cake, I had some buttermilk left over and decided to use it to make some bread. First stop was to Rachel Allen’s Bake book, one of my favourite baking books. Since I prefer brown scones to white ones, I decided to make brown soda bread. Here’s the recipe!

Brown Soda Bread
Adapted from  Rachel Allen’s Bake
Ingredients
225g (8oz) wholemeal flour
225g (8oz) plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
50g (2oz) sunflower, or golden linseeds (this isoptional)
25g (1oz) butter (this is optional)
1 egg
375-400ml Buttermilk

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F)
2. Sift together the flours, salt and bicarbonate of soda in a large bowl. Mix in the seeds. Add the butter and rub into the flour mixture with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg with the buttermilk and pour most, but not all, of the liquid into the flour mixture. Bring the flour and liquid together, either using a knife or better still, your fingers in the shape like a claw. Add more buttermilk if necessary, the dough should be soft but not sticky.
4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work counter. Bring together into a round shape, roughly 4cm deep. Mark a deep cross on the surface.
5. Place on a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes. Turn the heat down to 200°C (400°F), and cook for 30 minutes more. When fully cooked, the loaf will sound slightly hollow when tapped on the base. Cool on a wire rack.
6. Enjoy! I usually just top with butter, but I hear jam is nice too!

Red Velvet Cake!

Yes, there NEEDS to be an exclamation mark in the title of this post, it’s that good.

For my Dad’s 50th, I decided the cake had to be something special. And Red Velvet Cake is pretty special. I used the same recipe that I used for the Green Velvet Cupcakes I made last St. Patrick’s Day. As I was also in charge of making dinner for this event (for 17 people!), the cake got a bit neglected and one layer fell when I tried to take it out of the oven. After some reconstructive surgery, I made it look almost decent. Then, I made a mistake when making the cream cheese frosting but just about managed to save it. I used golden cake balls to write the 50 into the icing, gold as it’s his 50th year (clever huh?)

I didn’t get a chance to take a pretty shot of the cake as it was demolished as soon as it was pulled out. Dad liked the cake, as did everyone one so success!

25 Before 25: Fund a Kiva Loan

Funding a Kiva loan is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, ever since I first heard about Kiva on the ‘Stuff You Should Know’ podcast.

But first, what is Kiva? Kiva is a microlending site. It allows people to give loans of $25 to people who need it in developing parts of the world. It’s sorta like a mini bank loan. In it’s more basic form, you lend the $25 to person who needs the loan, who then eventually pays it back to you. You can then withdraw the money or use it to fund another loan. So it’s not a donation but a loan. It’s a tiny bit more complicated than that, so if you want to read more then CLICK HERE.

So I was super glad yesterday when I saw that Emma of fluff and fripperies had posted on her Facebook that Kiva are giving away FREE $25 loans to first time users! So I jumped at the chance to sign up.

For my loan, I chose the Estrella Dorada Group in Mexico, who I am glad got their 100% loan. The money they receive will help them get fresh ingredients and will allow for the business to expand. When you are choosing a loan, you can choose what sort of business you’d like to help. I only found out after that you can see loans that are about to expiring and help towards that, so you if you do sign up I’d suggest that you do that instead.

The Estrella Dorada Group (from Kiva.org)

If you would like to sign up, please click the following link and take it from there. There’s no catch, the only thing with the free loan is that when the money is repaid, it doesn’t go back to you. However, any loan paid with your own money you will receive back.

http://www.kiva.org/invitedby/breige3973

I will definitely make another donation with my own money, hopefully not too far into the future. Let me know if you sign up!

25 Before 25: Go to a Rugby Match

When I posted my 25 by 25 list on Sunday, I mentioned I had started writing the list a few weeks ago and had already accomplished one. I went to my first rugby match!

I’m not a huge rugby fan. It was never one of the watched sports in my house. The only reason I’ve decided to start watching it is because my boyfriend is a big fan. It’s only fair seeing as I’ve made him watch things like The OC and Dancing on Ice.

So when my boyfriend got tickets to the Munster VS Cardiff Blues match on 24th February, I said I’d go with him. Seeing as most of the team are playing in the 6 Nations, I didn’t really recognise any of them. Unless you count the fact I knew who Gavin Henson was for Cardiff! Nonetheless, I enjoyed the evening, especially as it’s funny when my boyfriend gets for into the game and starts shouting. I’m slowly learning the rules for rugby so I’m hoping next time I go I’ll be able to shout along with my boyfriend!

Thomond Park in (almost) all it’s glory!

25 Before 25

It only hit me a few weeks ago that I turn 25 this year. TWENTY FIVE. That’s a quarter of a century. And then it hit me that there’s probably loads of things I’d like to do before then. I’ve briefly touched on goals before and I like to do my resolutions for the past 3 years but there’s just something different about hitting a landmark birthday.
So I thought I’d write a 25 before 25 list. I’m sure I’ll make these lists for 30, 40, 50 etc. as there’s always so much to aim for. However, seeing as money is a bit of a problem at the moment, this list won’t be very ambitious so things like ‘See the Northern Lights’ and ‘Go to Galapagos Islands’ will have to wait. This will be more of a realistic, if slight more boring, list.
I started making this list a few weeks ago, so there’s already one thing I’ve done but I’ll reveal that in a later post!

25 Before 25

1. Crochet a granny square
2. Visit an unvisited country
3. Host a cocktail party
4. Sew an item of clothing from scratch
5. Become a vegetarian for a month
6. Host a fundraiser
7. Go to a rugby match
8. Learn to play poker
9. Take photo booth photos
10. Take a random road trip
11. Learn how to play a new instrument
12. Put a wild colour in my hair
13. Go to the Aran Islands
14. Try surfing
15. Enter a Craftster challenge
16. Plant some herbs and vegetables
17. Host an afternoon tea
18. Watch 100 films from IMDb 250 list
19. Learn to say ‘Hello’ and ‘I Love You’ in 25 languages
20. Write a short story
21. Get a manicure
22. Learn all the words to the National Anthem
23. Make a sock monkey
24. Fund a Kiva loan
25. Make a korma from scratch