£100 challenge – day twenty-two

Posted: October 22, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Went to work, then went to some different work via this place –

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New Walk, one of the prettiest places in central Leicester, especially at night. The following is a shot I took last night coming home in the drizzle, but whatever the weather New Walk is always beautiful. Obviously my phone-cam doesn’t remotely do it justice!

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I’ve avoided spending any money today, although I’m running low on or completely out of some stuff I’d quite like to have. I ate the last of the rice noodles today with more of the pumpkin stew (with a few additions), I’ve been out of facial tissues for some time and I’m starting to run out of the other kind, too. I could do with some more tights, and I’d really like to get a portable economical heater, but I think that will be completely impossible this month. I’m worried that if I leave it until it gets cold they’ll become more difficult to procure or the price will go up. Probably fretting over nothing though.

It was the final of the Great British Bake Off tonight! I won’t give away who won, because I’ve had a couple of episodes spoilered before I could catch up and it was infuriating! However, I didn’t think it was too bad a result and the winner seemed so happy I was really pleased for her.

As usual, I’d made a little something to scoff while watching. My very basic chocolate cake, doctored up with some orange oil and preserved ginger. Did the job.

Bonus cookies!

Posted: September 4, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Baking | Tags: , , , | 5 Comments

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Watching The Great British Bake Off makes me hungry. Since I don’t have a television at my house, and my boyfriend (who does have one) has some kind of sport-thing he does of a Tuesday, I have to wait for Wednesday evening to get my GBBO fix.

In preparation for drooling over fancy baking this evening I whipped up a quick batch of cookies earlier. When I need an urgent dose of sugar I generally go with the ‘Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies’ recipe to be found on http://www.vegweb.com and then mess around with it. It may not be sophisticated, but it gets the job done. The added bonus is that the recipe is incredibly easy to remember, as it’s 2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup oil and 1/4 cup water, some raising agent, chocolate chips and flavourings. The recipe says “a handful” of chocolate chips, which I take to mean half a cup. They don’t say whose hand it is!

This recipe is very customisable, the best received variation of these has been adding a cupful of dried mixed fruit (raisins, sultanas and mixed peel) instead of chocolate chips. I took them to work when the weather was chilly and people raved over them!

Today, I tried a new combination. In addition to chocolate chips, I added half a cup of chopped peanuts, omitted the cinnamon and put half a teaspoon of five spice powder instead. Not bad at all, although they made the house smell confusing, since the spices normally go in savoury food.

I also tried planting a few white chocolate chips on top of some of the cookies as soon as they were out of the oven. 

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