Baking how naughty!

Baking bread.

So today, I got home from cleaning. Decided to make some bread.  Even though I'm still "banned" from playing with flour - due to my allergy to flour and asthmatic condition as a result.

Flour Recipe:

4 cups of White Flour.
1 Teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 tablespoons of  dried yeast
3/4 cup of cold water
2 tablespoons of oil
3/4 cup of boiling water
** more oil, eggs (I used 3 for 2 loaves worth) and water for the Egg wash topping.

1. Combine the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a large bowl.

2. Add cold water and oil then the boiling water.

3. Stir to a smooth paste, let it stand 2-3 minutes.

4. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic or it bounces back to a light touch.
If the dough is still sticky, add some more flour.

5. Put dough back into the bowl. Leave in a warm spot until the dough has doubled in size.

6. Knead dough again on a floured surface.

7. Divide dough and put into a lightly oiled loaf tin (or muffin tin if making large rolls).

8. Leave in a warm place until the dough has risen again.

9. Heat oven to 140'C. While it's heating up, crack the eggs into a bowl, add water - apply to the loaf top and the tops of the rolls.

10. Bake at 140'C for about 30 minutes. (Rolls take about 25 minutes).

11. Turn onto a cooling rack, leave to cool uncovered.
When cool, put into paper bags. Will last around a week or so. (We normally eat them within a few days).



Some photos: During and After baking:
(Each one is a whole recipe worth, I repeated it twice).

Rolls in a muffin tin.

A large loaf. 

The baked rolls.

That loaf, again.

The rolls again. I'm not sure how I will get them out of the tin they seem pretty stuck!

 Nothing a run around with a knife won't fix.

Middle of July and end of July 2013

So in the past few days, since last Friday in fact, Wellington has been rocking and rolling.
We were awoken by a quake just after 7am on Friday morning, large enough to make me wake up, roll out of bed and "turtle" on the floor.

This cute video from 1951 shows how to "turtle": aka Duck and Cover.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60
In NZ we're taught to Duck, Cover and Hold. (Usually under a table).

Friday Dan went off to work. I was left at home alone, to fend for myself. Luckily the internet kept me entertained.

On Saturday we decided to relax. We stayed home and just hung out. Watched some TV shows.

On Sunday, another early morning jolt. Then after an afternoon of wandering town shopping and enjoying ourselves. . . We went to the supermarket. At 5:09pm we experienced the scariest shopping experience of our lives. We were in the middle of deciding what to buy, when everything started to shake and move. Things fell from the shelves. There was panic and mayhem! Somehow Dan grabbed my arm and we ran from the aisles to a closed doorway/ space clear enough to stand without having thing fall on us. About 4 other people joined us there. Everyone just ran. As soon as it has stopped, we checked everyone was okay and promptly left, bought our things and walked home. To the sounds of blaring alarms; the streets were quiet, with only a few other people around all walking quickly to their destinations.

When we reached home, 8 blocks away, we were thankful to find everything pretty much intact.
My lava lamp fell to the floor, thankfully it fell into the three parts, base, glass lava and top. Luckily the glass didn't break.

Next door, the apartment building has some cracks in the base. A few concrete blocks are broken out of it. Today I see that someone has put some cones up around it.

Here are some photo's I've taken from the Quake:

My Plants Vs Zombie figurines fell over off the bookshelves.

My artist human fell over...

The after photo: a few brick blocks are cracked/ falling out. 

Today: some cones and caution type tape. 

I also went up to Eva's Attic, where I volunteer and came across some other interesting quake problems. Such as:

A dolly was blocking the doorway!

Large mirror fell, not broken, thank goodness!

Wiring left exposed. Thankfully this is phone jacks not power!

A glass fell, unbroken.

A shoe rack: squashed by the mirror.

In the meantime Eva's Attic is closed until we can get engineer reports back about the building itself. Nothing too major, hopefully will be a fast fix. Closed until 5th August at this stage, but that date may change... so keep an eye out!

**Update: closed until we move. Having some moving sales check out our page on Facebook.

19th of July

So today is the 19th of July.
I went for an interview meeting for a job I applied for. Looking really good. I'm really excited.

Roses from Dan for our 2 year anniversary on the 11th. 

In more exciting news, I have a reblog opportunity for Free stuff. Eyewear/ vouchers. Keep an eye out!

July 2013

Oh wow!
I am not good at writing as often as I first suggested I would be!

The blog is going to be taking a new twist from the start of August, when I am shifting the viewpoint to things online that are of interest to me.... and in effect my readers.
Part of this means I will be sharing, liking and commenting about a wider range of topics and inviting other bloggers in to share pieces of their lives and blogs with you all.

Very exciting stuff.

In the meantime, I have been doing more DIY at my apartment, I finished the shelf unit that I re-purposed a set of drawers from. They look beautiful!

The new shelves; Used to be a 4 drawer dresser.

I also added the curtain at the bottom edge, as it hides our vacuum cleaner in there. Much nicer to look at in the lounge than a vacuum cleaner!

In other changes I changed the lounge furniture around, I know, again. So now it looks more homely and less like things have been thrown in places. 

Such as, 

Photographs, various dates and locations, but all taken by me.

The lounge: bookshelf to the left used to be behind the couch.

The blue table was turned on the other angle, it's more spacious like this. Although we still have one awkward extra dining chair going on. 

In other news, I have been working as a Volunteer for the past 2 months at Eva's Attic, a great little second hand premium used clothing store, Cuba Street (Wellington). I work there every Tuesday between 11am and 5pm. (Every second week I end at 2pm though). 

Here are some photos of the shop:

I don't think they need much explaining.  

A bunch of awesome clothes, shoes, bags, scarves etc. Oh and Men's clothing too!

Other than all that, life has been pretty quiet, I finished up at university in June. So it's been pretty quiet. But it's nice to have a break. I'm just seeing where life takes me at the moment. Job hunting is proving to be fruitful, we will see what happens. I'm still cleaning as well. 

Life is good. 

When I'm back next to make my next post, I'll have a few surprises up my sleeve, so keep an eye out!