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Archive for the ‘Activities’ Category

Balcony Farm

August 28th, 2010 Steph 1 comment

Our plants gave grown so big that we ran out of place on the kitchen top. Then we added more plants to our collection. So we moved it out to the balcony.

Farm on the balcony
We have 2 pots of chillies, basil and parsley, 1 pot of lavender, spring onion and an unknown flower.

Herbs
The parsley and basil is growing very fast. I have to harvest them almost every 3 weeks.

Extensive plant collection
Check out our chilli pots. It’s like a mini jungle!

Big Green Chillies
Lots of chillies waiting to be harvested.

Lavender
The lavender was dying and drying up. So we changed the soil and move it to a bigger pot. Now it looks healthy and finally growing well.

Categories: Activities, Food Tags:

I miss my nephew.

August 28th, 2010 Steph 1 comment

My 3 year old nephew loves to sing. I took the opportunity to record his singing on one of our car journeys.

He sang 3 songs in this car journey:

  1. Barney’s I Love You
  2. Itsy Bitsy Spider
  3. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Marcus Singing 1

And here, he’s singing Cheryl Cole’s Fight For This Love.

    Marcus Singing 2

    The many faces of Marcus.

    Marshmallow Cupcakes

    August 16th, 2010 Steph 1 comment

    I decided to make marshmallow cupcakes yesterday nite to cheer me up (see previous post).

    I came upon this recipe when I was browsing The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook by Tarek Malouf and The Hummingbird Bakers. Now if you have not heard about Hummingbird, you should! Especially if you’re into cupcakes. I believe it’s American and it has several branches in London. But it is VERY FAMOUS for its cupcakes.

    Anyhow back to my attempt to cheer myself up.

    So after dinner I started making the cupcakes. Marshmallow and cupcakes are definitely my all time favourite junk food (right on top of the list!). Therefore I thought the sugar high will lift my spirit. One bite from the cupcakes and I thought I could have instantly become diabetic! It was WAAAYYYY too sweet for my liking (and I’m a person who likes her sweet desserts!). Imagine I didnt even follow the full recipe, it will be even sweeter if I had melted the marshmallow and poured it into the cupcakes.

    If you’re interested to try, you can get the recipe here.

    Marshmallow & Frosting
    Mixing the marshmallow with the frosting. Never again will I make anything with frosts.

    Marshmallow Cupcakes
    End product. Excuse the picture quality. I was using my iPhone.

    Categories: Activities, Food, Personal opinion Tags:

    Harvesting Blackberries

    August 10th, 2010 Steph No comments

    Where have the time gone? It has been almost one year since we last picked blackberries from Wimbledon Common.

    Dav and I have been hoping we could pick more this year and thus we have started going to the Common every weekend to check the progress… For the past 2 weeks, there was barely anything and the blackberries were either green or red (i.e. not ripe). Yesterday we were more successful. Although there’s lots more bushes where the blackberries are still not rip, we did find a few bushes with very big and black berries.

    My father in-law was very excited and we could hardly stop him!

    We managed to get a container full of berries. Hopefully that would make one jar of jam. We are already planning to go back again next weekend to get more.

    Anyone interested to come along?

    Blackberries bushes
    Blackberry plant. It has lots of thorns which makes picking slightly more difficult and sometimes painful.

    Blackberries
    One container full of blackberries.

    Categories: Activities, Food Tags:

    Afternoon Tea @ The Wolseley

    August 8th, 2010 Steph No comments

    Last Wed, a colleague decided to arrange to go for afternoon tea after work at The Wolseley. Now this is the second time I’m going to afternoon tea in a week. It’s never enough really… hahahaha

    The food is served in a 3 tier tray but cant be refilled. They have really cute tea pots and the atmosphere is great. I would definitely recommend this place. The price is really reasonable too!

    Afternoon Tea @ The Wolseley
    Love the macaroon dipped in chocolate.

    Tea set
    My tea set.

    Cute tea pot
    Another cute little tea pot. Can’t believe they serve teas in different types of teapots.