Layman's chocolate danish

These are my easy-peasy-lazy "Layman's" Chocolate danishes. Let me tell you this, these won't last 5 seconds on the table if you have gannets like I do in my home! :-D

• 1 Box of ready rolled puff pastry (If you're lazy like me, use the ready rolled but if not, you can make your own.)

• 1 Jar of Nutella

• 1 Pack of Chocolate chips

• Baking tray

• Parchment paper

Okay, here we go.
Set the oven to 200c, we need the oven pre-heated (as per instructions on the box, though my oven is a little too hot at 200c). Open out your rolled pastry. If you are using a non-stick baking tray I would still recommend using a layer of parchment paper as the bottom of these danishes can burn easily.
(Sorry, my lovely assistant deleted the first pastry photo!)

Next, take a big spoon of Nutella and smother it onto the pastry. (I use the back of a spoon to do this as it spreads a lot easier!)

Now, if you've bought ready rolled pastry it will already be wrapped in paper. Take the edge of the paper and roll the pastry in on itself. Keep rolling until you get to the other end and you've ended up with something that looks like a log.

Take a sharp knife and cut the log into slices of about 1/2 inch. Flip them over onto the baking tray but make sure to leave a good bit of room between them as they will expand (they look like little spirals) then, take some chocolate chips and sprinkle them over the top of the pastry.

Now time to pop them in the oven! They should only take about 15 minutes to bake, just keep an eye on them because everyone's oven is different.

There you are, these take only a few minutes to prepare and about 20 seconds to eat. Enjoy!

My week in pictures

(Top to bottom, left to right)

• A Jackdaw wearing his chicks as a pair of novelty slippers on Springwatch
• The Bluetits nesting in my Dads back garden finally fledging
• Allium opening to reveal a fabulous purple puff
• A vertical rainbow on top of the mountain
• Going snow blind because of the reflection of the sun on my legs!
• Beautiful bleeding hearts
• Biopsy punctures and bruises

Paying bills.. kicking it oldskool!

A long, long time ago, in the 80's, my sMother used to pay all the bills by cash (Remember those days?!) Every Friday my Dad would come home with his wage packet and before it was even opened, it was placed in my sMother's hand. My sMother then had the task of juggling money to pay bills, keep us fed, basically keeping all of us alive on a tight budget.. and I mean TIGHT!
I remember the sMother having this huge green purse with lots of little pouches and panels. She would take an allotted amount of money and place it in each pouch for each bill. Thinking back now, she really was Superwoman. My hands would be so itchy with money sitting in my purse which I suppose comes from having too much money during the 'good old times'. Now the good times are well and truly over and I feel like I've been kicked back to the Irish recession in the 80's. It had me reminiscing at the local Stitch'n'Bitch club, how it was a simpler time. I remember bills being paid on time, no confusion over direct debits, standing orders or if the incompetent staff in Ulster Bank will manage to lodge money on time. It was only today that I had a conversation with Himself about how unproductive he is when it comes to paying his bills. (We pay our bills separately) Then, I came across this, 'A Time for Everything' It just brought me right back to the 80's! (which made me sad) So I rang Himself up and explained that because I am so efficient when it comes to paying bills that I should manage his, lo and behold he agreed. I am definitely going to invest in this little beauty!

I heart Organizing are having a great giveaway for one of these fab purses! Click here to enter!

The 'No Dig' bed..

(OK I lied, you have to dig a tiny bit!)

As promised, the lazy 'No Dig' bed for planting vegetables. As planting season is already under way some of you might not find this post very helpful, but I would see it as already getting prepared for the coming autumn. Maybe it's because, for me, time seems to be going so fast that I feel the need to think ahead. Anyhow, hope this post helps for your future gardening adventures.

Start off with a small bit of land. You can mark out the area using string and canes. If there is already soil on the ground grab your gardening fork and turn the soil. For your first layer, add sheets of cardboard, this will smother the weeds and mulch into the soil eventually. The second layer, add seaweed, if you live in Ireland you'll notice we are lacking in seaweed, so the best time to collect it off a beach is after a storm. If that's not possible to do, your local garden centre should have powdered seaweed in large bags. The third layer is straw, again, most people won't have this to hand but it is available from agricultural centers and some large pet stores (used in rabbit and guinea pig hutches) To keep that layer of straw down you should add a layer of soil and/or compost. The fifth layer is shredded newspaper and cardboard. It makes a great mulch for most beds, but make sure there aren't any glossy magazines, they don't break down like newspaper. The sixth layer is optional, but is great for the soil. You would tend to do this part in Autumn. When the leaves finally fall off the trees, get out there with refuse sacks and collect all the leaves you can. These are invaluable! They are great for mulching and a good thick layer on a bed will keep the weeds at bay. I've noticed on a lot of forums gardeners have used cut grass instead but I find it goes into seed and basically ruins the beds. You don't want to spend 90% of your time weeding, right?

And lastly, add another layer of soil or compost. All these layers will break down and will give you lovely soil. I will do another post on soil soon. Let me know if you have attempted a No Dig bed before and if there is anything I can add that might be helpful to my no dig bed!

On top of me head!

I want to say an uber big SORRY to my two followers for not updating in a while. As I'm sure you read back in March that my Mother passed away, it was a terrible heart-breaking time for the family (and still is) and everyone that knew her. My Mother and I were, at the time, attending a night course to get our FETAC 5 cert as Care Assistants. After my Mother passed I found it quite difficult to continue with my study and unfortunately missed the submission date for my work. Since then I've started another module of the care assistant course and I am finally on a roll with my work, so that has been taking up a huge lump of my time. When I'm not studying or at the gym, I am usually working on a community allotment in the local countryside. I love it, it's so good to get the hands into the soil. The Irish weather has been unkind again this year, so our beds are still empty. While we've been waiting to the seeds to sprout, (cat+seed tray=disaster) we've been busy (between showers, hailstones and thunder storms!!) building a No Dig bed. It was our first time this year trying this out. I promise to do a small blog explaining what this is and how easy it is to do! I do have a lot of blogs to post up but I just haven't had the time to sort out the photos and words. Here is an idea of what will be coming soon;

• More crafts with tins
• Layman's danishes
• Recycling 
• An Cuige allotments
• My own allotment
• Knitted tea cosy
• Interiors
• and..fashion.. yes I know, I'm in my wellies and mucky clothes most of the time!

Tinlights

If there's one thing I love more than cake, it's hoarding. (Himself thinks I'm a hobo in training!) I have bags and bags of tins and glass jars and I have GREAT intentions of doing some crafty things to them! (Thanks to Pinterest!)

Here is a little tutorial I came across; (I don't know what website because I didn't bookmark it, wish I could credit the author :-/ )


Needed:
 1 Hammer (or heavy shoe)
 1 Nail (Not the stick-on ones, one of those masonry ones the boys use!)
 Some cord or an old shoe lace. (Optional)
 1 Tea-light candle


-Take an empty tin (or can) and give it a good scrubbing and peel off all of the labels.(Instead of scrubbing, simply pop it in the dishwasher)
-If you can't get the glue off use a bit of nail varnish remover, I find that helps for most sticky bits.
- When it's all clean, fill the tin with water and pop it in the freezer overnight. (WTF?)
* This is so when you try to hammer your pattern onto the tin, it won't crush or put the tin out of shape.

- If you want, with a Sharpie, you can draw your desired pattern onto the tin. (Please excuse my wonky heart! Hehe)

- Take your hammer and whack the nail so it punctures the tin, continue to finish your pattern.

I know my nails are dirty, it's called manual labour ;-)

- When finished, allow your ice to dissolve and drain in the sink, then pop in your tea-light. Easy peasy and fab, right?

If you want to use these tins as hanging tea-lights simply puncture a hole either side at the top of the tin and thread some rope through.

The allotment..

It looks so bleak at this time of year!

As the weather was atrocious last year and we were over run with snails and slugs, the poor allotment was left to over-grow. I did have some small raised beds planted in the back "secret garden" yet the yield was little to nothing. Lets just say the snails were well fed last year. As it's now coming into April, it's about time to start preparing the ground/beds for planting in May. Some say you are ready to plant in April, but I find the last chance/risk of frost is after the second week of May. The climate has changed so much over the last few years that the sowing and pricking out times have been later and later. 2 years ago I was caught out in May, it actually snowed the first week!! A good way to test if your soil is warm enough for planting is by sticking your elbow in it, if it's somewhat warm you are ready. Another way they used to test the soil in ye olden times was to pull the gruds/knickers down and sit on it but you don't want to frighten the neighbours, right? :)

This week, Himself and Meself got busy! (Dirty minds!) On his day off we armed ourselves with all of the gardening tools and some muscle. The raised beds were all over the place last year and I wasn't very happy with the layout. Behind the raised beds we have another 11ft to the back fence and I was hoping that this year we could put a sitting area in there. We've been using that whole area for mulching/compost so that's going to be a huge job to clear out! (I had planned to lay out the allotment like this next picture because it was so quaint, but as always, any plans I make Himself wants to do the opposite.) It gets great sun in the evening as it faces west so it's a sin not to use it!

I was on Pinterest this week looking for inspiration for the back area, I found this..so simple and it doesn't look like it needs alot of up keep.

 

I love the use of the bamboo, it makes a really relaxing rustling sound in a breeze!

Hokey Pokey

As I live in quite a small home I find myself trawling the interweb looking for ideas and inspiration for compact living and space saving solutions. While poking about this week, I came across this uber amazing video. This furniture is definitely inspired by caravan holidays!

(p.s Lets hope Ikea pick up on some of these designs!!)