Tails’ Blography

So Pinterest are updating their terms!

Notably these:

Are you using Pinterest? Whats your pin? You can follow me if you like.

New poll btw!

So! Yesterday I had an urge to make some hot cross buns…so I did! And they came out great! I even did a squeal of joy when I saw them after I took them out of the oven.

Ingredients:

Buns:

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup castor sugar
• 1 packet of yeast
• 1 pinch salt
• 1tsp of both nutmeg and cinnamon
• 200g raisins and fruits (diced, the larger raisins pop out of the dough while you’re kneading it)
• 60g butter, melted
• 1 1/2 cups warm milk
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Crosses:

• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/4 cup water
• Melted apricot jam for basting

Method:

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. You dont have to sift the flour if you knead it enough. Make a well in the centre and pour in the wet ingredients (mixed beforehand in a jug). Mix with a spoon til incorporated.

Knead on lightly floured surface for 10min or until elastic and smooth. I did mine for 5min. Leave in bowl to dbl in size (approx 1 hr). Knead again and roll into a sausage shape. Cut into 16 or so pieces and roll into balls.

Place in a lined pan, and they can be close to touching. Leave for another 30 min to rise some more.

After 30min, baste dough balls with jam. Make a paste from 1/3 cup flour and 1/4 cup of water (dont thin this down more like I did). Scoop it into a ziplock bag, snip a corner and squeeze a cross onto each dough ball.

Bake in preheated oven at 200 degrees Celcius for 20-25min or until golden on top. Remove and leave to cool for 10min before serving.

Leave to cool for 10min and then serve! Clearly my oven bakes unevenly lol as some are more golden than others The ones at the back left look downright anemic but they were more browned in person!

PS: Orginal recipe from the very entertaining One Pot Chef! Some great recipes on his channel guys! Check them out!

Posted via my HTC!

Both 5 weeks only this coming Tuesday, meet Nimh who is carrying on my Camera Theme and is an Agouti Berkshire (as far as I can tell):

And Thyme who is starting my new gardening theme and is a PEW with a head weave as most PEWs have lol poor thing

Which is exactly what I intend to do!

Our garden, as I think I’ve mentioned before, is almost as arrid as a desert! The sun beats down on it almost full time and thus even our flower bed struggles to keep plants alive within its soil. A while back M and I bought a half wine barrel for R150 (bargin!) and we sanded it, varnished it and thats pretty much where its ended.

I’ve been desperately looking out for a Dwarf Citrus tree of sorts (the dwarf variety is propegated off a full grown tree vs a sapling thats stunted as a bonsai) but there is nowhere that I can find that sells this elusive tree. Thus our barrel has sat empty, void of all soil and roots (ok my mom borrowed it for her avo tree for a bit) and I recently (read: earlier today) found an article in The Gardener magazine which spoke of “Designer Trees: Local winners for small gardens” which turned out to be a pretty cool article. It basically outlined 5 or 6 trees to consider for a small garden.

Two of which caught my eye and are available fairly easily:

Heteropyxis natalensis – Lavender Tree (pictured above)
Searsia pendulina (formerly Rhus pendulina) – Wild Pear

Both are sized 4-10m tall (obv pruned to stay at 4m) and are great with full sun, and dry conditions. So I found a place that sells em, and I was verbally quoted R1500 for a tree of 4m in height (the largest which can be handled by hand without machinery assistance) which is too big anyway, so I’m hoping the price will come down for a smaller (2m) tree.

Yay! I cant wait! I’d like any thoughts you have on which tree you prefer, and why!

And some more good news, possibly even better, Iso’s biopsy results came back. She has (had?) a benign tumour which my vet removed in its entirety vs just a small biopsy and all looks good for it not to bother her again! They suspect it was a saliva gland gone awry but they said it looked like the vet had removed it all so happy days all around!

This weekend I’m finally doing something I’ve been waiting for since March 2011 for! I’m going Wedding Dress Browsing!

My sister (who is my Maid of Honour), my best friend (who is my bridesmaid), my mom (who is awesome) and a good friend (who never got to dress shop for her own wedding) are all coming along to assist!

The shop we’re going to is by appointment only, and we’ve booked the package which includes a bottle of of champagne, some cheese, crackers and 5 dresses to try on, and afterwards we’re having a braai at my place to continue on the festivities. The guys are going to hang out at our place while we go off and do the dress thing.

Its the first real weddingy thing I’ve done thus far, except view some venues. Oh, speaking of venues, we’ve booked ours! We chose a lovely winery which is so picturesque and perfect! We also booked our honeymoon suite which is 4 star accomodation and includes a Honeymoon turndown service with champagne, chocolates, cheese, and biscuits as well as breakfast the next morning as well as a complimentary wine tasting and cellar tour! So much awesomeness!

I’ve had a bit of trouble with my rats recently, Iso has a growth/lump on the side of her face. So I took her to the vet, got a week’s dose of Baytril and Prednisone and went home. The meds helped a little but she’s still got the lump, so I took her in the following Saturday and then again on Monday for a biopsy.

She came home with stitches on her cheek, poor thing, and I’ll get the biopsy results hopefully by Friday. If its a tumour, at least I’ll know. Anyway, so yesterday morning I had them out on the bed and next thing I look, there’s Macro grooming out all Iso’s stitches! GRR! So now the wound is open, bar one stitch, so I took her through to the lounge to glue it shut with superglue! (the vet does this all the time) It worked and I then decided to keep them separate until the wound is healed, which I should have done in the first place, but didnt because I felt bad that they were both alone in their respective cages.

Ok so next weekend is also a first for me! My first photoshoot! I won an engagement photoshoot from Hearts in a Shutter and we’ve booked for the following weekend! As you know, I’m normally always the one behind the camera, so this is rather daunting for me. I have no idea what to wear, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out (I’d buy something new but the vet bill set me back R800 this month and still R371 to go!). We chose a nice earthy theme and picked a forest to do the shoot in, so I’m looking very forward to it, in amongst the nerves haha.

And then the following weekend after that one, we’re meeting with our wedding photographer to sign on the dotted line! She is an amazing photographer and I’m so lucky to be able to secure her for our wedding! I always knew the photography was going to be the toughest decision for me because I’m a photographer, but she made it so simple!

And that, my dear readers, are my next few weeks in a nutshell….