Let’s Bake! (Ensaymada Edition)

I haven’t done a post like this in ages! I have done lots of baking, but nothing I felt like sharing on the blog. I should have taken photos of the russian fudge I made last week as I got lots of questions about it. I’ll keep it in mind for next time!

So Ensaymada was first introduced to me by a Filipino parent at the centre I work at. He brought these in during a family xmas party and I loved it. It’s a light, fluffy little muffin thing, covered in buttercream and topped with lots of cheese. It is so good, so I decided I wanted to try make some.

Anyway, I followed this recipe from Foxy Folksy, a blog run by a lovely couple. I had never worked with yeast before, so I was nervous but I had always wanted to try. So once the dough was all made, I left it in the kitchen for a few hours to see if it would double in size. It did!

I didn’t have a before photo, but it was way less than what you see above. The next step was the most fun. Lots of rolling and kneading to get 16 pieces, which is how much the recipe makes. Then you roll out those pieces again and coil them up to get the shape.

They don’t take too long to bake, and the house smelt so good while they did. After 20 minutes, they were all golden, so I took them out to let them cool.

Little pillowy buns! I whipped up some buttercream then grated some cheese. All these final touches took around half an hour, then we dug in! It was delicious, before we ate more though, I wanted to take some pretty pictures.

Yummy! These ones were not as light as I had tried before, it was a little more denser. More like a muffin texture, but it was still delicious. Both sweet and savoury at the same time, each one felt like a mini meal. Breakfast was set for the next few days!

Have you baked during the lockdown much? I’ve loved trying out new recipes, and also pulling out old trusty ones too!

Angela.

 

Weekly Wonders #7

Another week, another post talking about the highlights.

Paddling Pool Fun

Got Naomi another new toy, which will hopefully be in use for years. This inflatable paddling pool/ball pit. Naomi likes to chill in their and bring in all her friends. This includes stuffed toys and her baby.

We also put in water the other day and let her have a splash around in the warm sunroom.

Ensaymada

I followed this recipe as well as I could. I’ve never worked with yeast before so I was worried it wouldn’t rise well,  but it did! The end result was delicious and quite filling. I might make mini  versions next time. I’ll probably make this a full post to share later in the week cause I’m really proud with how they came out!

Walks

Still love to get out when we can and get that fresh air. This morning I took photos in was a little chilly as we had just had a cold snap that past day.

Selfies

One of Naomi’s favourite things to play with is the selfie mode on my phone. I like to hit record and see what she does. I’m always adding these on Instagram. Also, it’s just fun to stop and take a selfie.

Keeping Busy

Again, still playing lots of animal crossing. I’ve given in and decided to also get a switch cause the new horizons game is just calling me. This lockdown has caused me to spend more money than is probably wise, but I’m thinking of it as an investment.

Also been squeezing in daily yoga still and occasionally cross stitching.

Feels like all my spare time has been taken up lately. But I’ve still been able to do lots of fun stuff so I’m happy.

What have you guys been up to this past week?

Angela.

Weekly Wonders #6

Another week has passed us by. I haven’t been taking as many photos or going outside as much, as the weather has been getting a bit gloomier. Also, the sun has been setting earlier so our days are feeling shorter.

Baking

I didn’t bake as much this week. I wanted to try bread, but I couldn’t find any yeast at the store. So I tried some different baked goods I hadn’t made before. Chocolate brownies and russian fudge. Both came out really well!

A New Toy

I ordered a toy kitchen for Naomi and it arrived this week. We have a similar one at daycare and she loves it, so I thought it would be nice if we had one at home. She’s been having lots of fun with it.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Pictured on the left here is where I’ve been spending a lot of my time. Sitting on the couch playing Animal Crossing. It’s been a lot of fun, and I keep on expanding my house.

Tattoo Craving

This was a weird title for this section, but it was all I could think of. I got my last tattoo in December 2017. It’s a small delicate flower on my left wrist. In July of that same year, I got my favourite tattoo, this shoulder mandala. I had actually made a booking to get a new tattoo a few weeks back, but what with the current situation, we had to reschedule. It’s now for the end of this month, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to stick with it but who knows?

That’s all that happened for this week. I haven’t been spending too much time on social media, so I’m really behind on reading everyone’s posts. I’m still doing yoga videos everyday, working from home when I can, reading a little and just riding this out. Hope you guys are all doing well.

Angela.

Weekly Wonders #5

Back for another recap of what went down this past week. Not a whole lot really. Spent most of it playing Animal Crossing. I’m so hooked.

Animal Crossing New Leaf

 

Like I said, this is most of what I’ve been doing. I don’t have any photos to share, so I’ve attached some of the ones I’ve sent to my sister, along with my strange grammar. I’m having so much fun being mayor, shaking trees, fishing, planting, catching bugs and trying to figure out this turnip business.

Food

To the surprise of no one, I’ve been doing more baking. Once I run out of one batch, I make another. I may have a problem. Made Anzac biscuits, and more hokey pokey biscuits. I’m also thinking of making a feijoa cake down the line cause we have heaps.

Outside Time

Despite my game addiction, we still also get outside most days. This past week had lots of nicer days, so we took advantage and headed out. Even if it’s just in the backyard. Fresh air does wonders for clearing your head.

Getting Creative

I made homemade paint. It’s basically equal parts flour salt and water. Then add food colouring. Since Naomi is 1, she basically ate it straight away. It may be the saltiest thing she ever ate as she immediately started spitting everywhere then crying. She did this multiple times before we gave up on the endeavour.

I’ve always liked trying origami. Half the time it works, the other half I give up. I found a youtube clip to make an origami lotus and decided to give it a go. I’m pretty happy with how it came out!

Keeping Busy

As always we stay at home unless we’re out for walks, or I go to the supermarket for our weekly shop. Naomi now loves playing with the camera on my phone. I find it hilarious to hit record to see what she does. I share a lot of these on Instagram now. Even though Naomi comes with me at work, it’s nice being able to have so much one on one time with her during this lockdown.

Slower progress on my cross stitch. You can see more flowers appearing around. I want to do more on it, but I keep getting distracted.

Another two weeks of mostly being at home. But restrictions around takeaways and online shopping are mostly back to normal, so I’m excited for that. Hopefully NZ can continue keeping our numbers low and we can slowly get back to ‘normal’. Till then, we’ll just hang at home.

Stay safe all.

Angela.

Weekly Wonders #4

I’ve been keeping myself busy with games heaps this week, which means I haven’t been blogging much again. But, it has been nice to step away a bit. Anyway, here’s some highlights of our past week during the lockdown.

Food

As always, I’ve been doing more baking. This week I made Apple Cinnamon Muffins, Lemon Slices, and scones. I am going through so much flour. I also made Dalgona coffee lots more times as well. I’m still very addicted to it.

Cross Stitch

I’m unable to finish my previous cross stitch project as I’m out of thread and can’t get any more until the lockdown is over. So I started one of my new ones. I’ve made pretty good progress in a week.

Hanging Out

We still went out for walks when we could, but the weather wasn’t the best this past week. So we mostly all hung out inside.

Keeping Busy

So Rory dug out his old Nintendo 3DS for me, as I was playing an old Pokemon game on an emulator on my phone. That kept me busy for a bit, then I realised that I could get an older version of the Animal Crossing game on it via the e-Shop. So now, I’ve been doing that non stop and I literally have to be pulled away from it. It’s somewhat taken over my life. In other news, New Zealand may be leaving our lockdown in the next few days. We’re not sure yet, but there’ll be an official announcement sometime today. It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out.

That’s all for my past week. How was yours?

Angela.

Board Games We Have

Another random mid week post. So I don’t actually play much of our physical board games anymore. Even before the lockdown, I began playing more games online. Including tabletop simulator on steam, where you can actually play board games online with your friends. It’s a lot of fun. But  I still also love the physical games that we have too. So I thought I’d share the ones Rory and I own.

Scrabble

Everyone has played scrabble right? I don’t think I need to explain how the game works, but basically you make words out of the tiles that you have. We have a travel version that was given by a family member who never uses it. It’s quite handy too, as the tiles actually clip into the board. So if someone accidentally knocks the table, they all stay there.

The Game of Life

Another classic board game, but perhaps not one everyone has played. I didn’t play this one growing up, but Rory did. You pretty much are a little peg in a car, going through the typical milestones of adult life until retirement. I played it for the first time with him and his family, back in our very early dating days. I liked it, and decided to get Rory his own copy for his birthday. It’s fun to play, and since we’ve had it for the longest, I have lots of memories attached to it. Like Rory getting fired three times in a single game. It was hilarious.

Machi Koro

Now we get more into the lesser known ones. I spotted this in a shop, and was immediately drawn to the art style. It looked cute, and there was a town. I didn’t get it there and then. But slowly I looked more into it, and kept umming and ahhing about it. You are a mayor, and you have to build a town before the other mayors (players) is the gist of the game. Eventually, Rory got it for me one birthday and we’ve played it a few times. It took me a while to wrap my head around, but it’s pretty fun. I have never won a single game against Rory, he’s always been a better strategist.

Pandemic

This is another birthday present from Rory. We like games. I had played this with a friend before, and I liked that it’s a co-op. Everyone needs to work together to find the cures and save humanity before it’s too late. Also, it’s kind of funny to mention this game now, given everyone’s current situation. But anyway, this game is fairly complicated, if you’re not into these big strategy games. We tried to bring in some family to play it one Christmas, and everyone was real confused. Anyway, it’s mostly fun to play, sometimes a little stressful.

Settlers of Catan

This was a christmas present I gave Rory. I just realized that all the board games we have were gifted which is pretty neat. This is also the only game you can not play with only 2 people, so we haven’t really been able to play it as much. Which is a shame, cause it’s a lot of fun! You are settlers, competing for resources and trying to build your settlement better and faster than the others. The photos I’m using for this one are from Christmas a few years back where we all played it. We did multiple games over a few days, and it got a little competitive which was hilarious. No bad feelings from anyone in the end though!

So if you’re interested in any of these games, I’ve linked to their wiki page where you can have a better look at how the game works and looks. I do recommend all the ones I have, as they’re all fun! What kind of board games do you guys have? Or what have you been playing during the lockdown?

Angela.

Weekly Wonders #3

Another week in and what we got up to.

Food

Starting off with lemon cake. It’s really light and zingy, plus we ran out of coffee cake and I wanted more cake.

Made hokey pokey cookies once the lemon cake run out. I’ve made this recipe since I was little, and they’re really easy and nice cookies. Not too sweet, but quite fluffy and a nice cookie to have with a drink, you know?

Extra things including french toast with blueberries, and multiple dalgona coffees. I’m so addicted.

Hanging out with Naomi

I’ve ordered some more things for Naomi to help entertain her at home. This includes this activity cube, fox xylophone and a walker with lots of things for her to grab and pull. She’s been loving using it to help her walk and keep her balance around the house.

Also got her some new pink shoes as her soft sole blue ducky shoes are slowly getting worn out.

We also tried some gloop. She spilled it all over the sun room but it kept her entertained, and gloop isn’t really that hard to tidy up.

Outside Time

Went a bit further out for a walk, by that I mean we went to the end of our street to the park there.

Also spent lots of time in our backyard again.

Keeping Busy

As always, I did some cross stitching, read, watched You Tube, cleaned, and kept up with stuff for work.

I also messed around with my DSLR camera a little. I was outside with Naomi and Shadow and tried taking some close up/portrait style shots of them.

Since Easter is coming, I tried my hand at a few arts and crafts, and also made a whole blog post about it.

What did you guys get up to this week?

Angela.

 

Easter Arts and Crafts

So as part of me working from home, we’ve been uploading activities and mat times and such onto an online platform for the families at my daycare centre. As Easter is coming up, we’ve been sharing lots of themed arts and crafts, and I wanted to share them on my blog too.

I decided to do both religious and secular activities. The first one I found and shared is a tape cross art. Its super easy to do provided you have paint and washi tape. I did not have paint, but I improvised with crayons. I think paint would look cooler, but make do with what you got right?

So all you do is places the washi tape in the shape of a cross on your paper and colour over it. When you remove the washi tape, the image of the cross remains in negative space on your piece of art. Pretty cool! You could even do other designs with the tape too come to think of it.

The second craft is an Easter egg mosaic. This was really fun for me. You need coloured paper, or just regular paper that you coloured in with your crayons. Then you cut them into lots of little pieces and arrange them on your egg. Once completed, you have a colourful mosaic egg!

Finally, the last one was marbled eggs. I was deliberating leaving this one out as I was underwhelmed with the results. The site I got the idea from looked so cool, while mine were a bit lacklustre. Basically you put your hard boiled egg into a mug filled with hot water, a teaspoon of vinegar and a few drops of food colouring for a few minutes. This is to give your egg its base colour.

Then, you place it in a bowl with a little bit of water, 1 tbsp of oil and more drops of food colouring. Spoon some mixture over the top of the egg then leave it in the bowl for a few minutes. Then turn it over and repeat. Finally, pat them dry with a paper towel.

After all this is done, you’re meant to have eggs with crazy, marbled patterns. Didn’t quite work for me, but I didn’t want to keep wasting eggs, so this is what I got. I’ll try again next year.

My last Easter Post was back in 2018 where I made some carrot cake balls which I recommend checking out if you’re also looking for some easter themed treats.

What Easter themed arts and crafts are you planning to make or bake? Or with the current situation, are you not really planning to do much at all?

Angela.

Weekly Wonders #2

Another week of mostly being inside.

Hanging in our backyard

We try to go out for walks, but Naomi hates being restrained in her buggy. So instead, we set her free outside. She loves going out. She’ll point at her shoes then start heading to the door. She’s starting to stand more and more which is pretty exciting!

More Baking

Made some apple crumble but didn’t take any pictures.

Chocolate chip cookies, using a different recipe which made them more softer and chewier.

Coffee cake, using a really easy and simple recipe I found online.

30 Days of Songs Challenge

I saw an old blogging friend Jasmin post this on her story. I don’t know if she’s still doing it, but I thought it sounded fun, and for no reason, I’m keeping up with it.

Here are the songs I’ve done for each day so far.

Day 1 – A song you like with a colour in the title

Self-explanatory. I was going back and forth between this and that blue da ba dee song. But I like Lorde better.

Day 2 – A song you like with a number in the title

Again, self-explanatory. There are a million songs with a number in the title, but I was listening to this most recently so it was fresh in my head.

Day 3 – A song that reminds you of summertime

This song was a big summer hit in 2016 I think. And it has just stuck with me, it’s so damn catchy. Who doesn’t sing along to the whole chorus??

Day 4 – A song that reminds you of someone you’d rather forget

I couldn’t think of a person that I’d want to forget. So I spun this prompt and thought of 10 year old me and my friends doing a choreographed dance routine we made up to this song…in front of the whole school. I’ve blacked out most of the memory, but I still cringe about it.

Day 5 – A song that needs to be played loud

I have loved this song since it first released. I have also got Naomi hooked on it which is great. This has to be played loud, because I like to sing along with it but I do not have Idina’s range, so if it’s loud enough, I can’t hear my voice crack.

Staying Social while Distancing

Had our first zoom work meeting last monday. That was nice to see everyone. Also called a few of the families from work, just to catch up and see how they were doing.

Skyped with a few friends I hadn’t seen in a while. We sometimes don’t talk for ages cause we all get busy with life, so what perfect time than now to catch up.

Played games online with my siblings, and had our weekly skype catch up with the parents too.

Keeping Busy

More of the weekly cleaning, as things get messier faster since we’re home all the time.

Have managed to keep up with my 30 days of yoga still which is good!

Tried that whipped coffee thing that’s been circulating online. The first time, I mixed it just for a while so it didn’t really work. The second time I used my electric beater for around 10 minutes and it worked really nice. It tastes like a really sweet coffee which I prefer.

Went out to do the weekly grocery shop as Rory went last week. I haven’t been since all the new precautions have been put in place. They only allow a certain number of  people in at once,  so there’s a line outside. They have cones set out that you stand next to, so we keep our distance. Also inside, there’s lots of signs about limits on products, reminders to wash your hands and all that. It was really nice to get out and drive to the store I have to say. I miss the daily drives to and from work, and just the daily grind in general.

Making progress this past week on my big cross stitch project that I’ve been doing for over 2 years now.

Playing games, reading books and occasionally fretting about the reality of our current situation.

What have you guys been up to this past week?

Angela.