Good morning starshine

I should really be getting ready for school right now, but I'm putting it off for as long as possible...

I'm currently listening to Gabrielle Aplin (again). Her music is just so relaxing and lovely. I really need to dowload English Rain on to my ipod.

I really just wanted to share this song, now I need to go and finish getting ready.
(Sorry for any typos, I'm not wearing my glasses. I'll come back later and check)#

Love, Shay. xo

Brace yourself

I'm getting braces. I've known for a while that I've needed braces; I've been on the orthodontist waiting list for over a year. But I'm still really sad. Obviously I want straight teeth, and in the long run I know I'll regret it if I don't get them, but I'm still really nervous. I went to the orthodontist today where they did moulds of my mouth and then x-rays and stuff, and it was pretty uncomfortable. They were stretching my mouth here, there, and everywhere. I have to have them for 18-24 months, which kinda sucks. I also have to get four teeth out at the dentist, so overall this is no fun. I'm trying to look forward to the end and I don't even have braces yet! But I think the hardest thing is going to be the food; I was told that sweet treats such as delicioss cakes and cookies are out of bounds- how will I cope?! So to make the most of it I'm going to stuff my face each and every day (okay not really but I wish I could).
Sorry for the boring post, not much is going on right now.

Love, Shay. xo

P.S Have you seen this years John Lewis advert yet? I'm in love. When we first watched it me and my mum were tearing up. It's beautiful.

Pea and bacon soup

Okay. I'm a bad person. I'm so sorry for not uploading sooner, but I feel like my life is pretty hectic right now. The amount of coursework I have to do for school is ridiculous. I need a schedule.
Anyway, I'm here now with a super soup that will warm you right up in time for chilly(er) days. But seriously, it's freezing right now.
My mum made this for us on bonfire night and it was delicious. She said she thinks the recipe was in a Tesco magazine a few years a go, but she's not quite sure. Basically she made this up as she went along. This recipe made quite a lot, but you could quite easily change the measurements to suit you. This is more of a guideline than an actual recipe.

Ingredients
-1 bunch of spring onions
-2 litres of vegetable stock
-1 kilogram frozen peas
- Salt and pepper
- 1 tub of cream cheese
- Bacon

Directions
1) Cook the spring onion in alarge saucepan on a low heat for about 10 minutes.
2) Pour all of the stock into the pan and stir witha wooden spoon.
3) Cafefully add in all the peas. Turn the heat up and wait until boiling.
4) Add in salt and pepper to taste.
5) Using a handblender whizz until smooth - your soup will be quite runny at this point.
6) Add in cream cheese and whizz again. Add as much cream cheese as you like, or until the soup is your desired consistency.
7) Cook your bacon and chop it up. Stir it in to your soup.

Done! It's soo easy to make and really tasty too. You can take the bacon out for a vegetarian soup if you like, or use parma ham for a different flavour. It really is up to you!

Love Shay. xo

Billington's brownies

A couple of weeks ago my mum sent off for a free Billington’s cake tin. You literally only have to buy two packets of sugar then go on the website and enter the codes. I’m actually not 100% sure if they're still doing this, but if they are you should go buy some sugar. 'Cause it’s a free cake tin, right?

Anyway, it had these little leaflets inside that had a recipe for brownies, and I know ive already posted a brownie recipe before but they were technically supposed to be cookies. Plus these are much more ooey gooey. And it’s a totally different recipe.

You can find this recipe here.

Ingredients

250g Billington's Unrefined Dark Muscovado Sugar (of course any dark muscovado sugar would work)

200g unsalted butter

350g 70% dark chocolate, chopped into pieces (I used 200g milk chocolate and 150g dark chocolate. This was purely because dark chocolate isn’t my favourite thing in the world)

3 medium eggs

50g self-raising flour

Method

1) Preheat the oven to 190°C/gas mark 5, line a tin with baking parchment.

2) Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water.

3) Whisk the eggs until pale and fluffy. Add the dark muscovado sugar and whisk until thick. Gently fold in the chocolate.

4) Sift in the flour and fold in until the mixture is smooth.

5) Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 30-35 minutes, until you see a paper-like crust on top. There should still be some movement in the centre of the tin.

6) Remove from the oven, leave to cool, then cut into squares.

These brownies were really soft and gooey in the middle. They went great with a spoonful of ice cream, and my family pretty much devoured them in a day. I blame my brother.

I also reheated one in the microwave (for about 45-60 seconds), and it was fab.

See you soon!

Love Shay. xo

Please accept my heartfelt apologies

I am so so so so sorry for my over-a-week-long absence, but I promise I have a legitimate reason.

Because I don’t have my own laptop, most of my internet-ing is done on my phone. I don’t really like doing blog posts on my phone because I always have to come back to them later to edit. Because of this, the only chance I get to post is on the family computer. My dad’s currently doing a degree, so he’s on the computer any chance he gets, but, unfortunately for me, this means the only time I get to go on the computer is before he comes home from work or quite late at night. 

Does this adorable cat make up for it? (I'm not too sure where this picture's from, I think it was on Tumblr. If you know it'd be great if you could tell me)

I’m really really sorry for not posting sooner, but I feel like recently I'm always busy, and when I’m not I don’t have access to the computer. I’ll try to upload sooner in the future.

I feel like I sometimes have to force my blog posts and I hate that, so I’m going to start planning a lot more. I had really big ideas for this blog and I don’t want to my laziness or disorganisation stop that.

Anyway, I just want to apologise again.

Love Shay. xo