Thursday 27 June 2013

New "FriendlyNettle" website is out!

Hey, I have wonderful news! Friendly Nettle website is up and running (still lots to do on it, but you would be waiting forever for a perfect one as it is on the constant progress)!!!

This also means that I will no longer blog on blogspot :(, so if you have been following me here, please check me out on www.friendlynettle.com. There are many things to come on the new website, like your own craft community profile and many more exciting projects to do (in more organised manner).

Thanks again for following me so far!

Rasa xo

Friday 21 June 2013

Elderflower Cordial



 As mentioned on last post, I made cordal from the Elderflowers I collected by the river Lea. The recipe is bellow.

ELDERFLOWER CORDAL

Ingredients: 20 heads freshly picked elderflowers
                   1.30kg sugar
                   1l water
                   2 lemons
                   60g citric acid or lemon salt (I bought mine in one of the Turkish shops in London)
                 
1. Cut the flowers and place them in large bowl or saucepan.
                 

 2. Add sliced lemons and citric acid

3. In a large, heavy-bottomed pan, heat the sugar and water until it boils and then allow to boil for about 5 minutes to form a thin syrup
4. When the syrup is ready, remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature before pouring over the flowers. Cover and leave for at least 24 hours before straining (I left it for two days).
5. Sterilise your jars by heating them in 180C oven for 5 minutes. Pour strained cordal into the jars. This should keep for up to a year. Serve with water or anything else that you come up with. I dropped some strawberries into mine!

 There are so many uses for Elderflower cordal such as jelly or poppyseed cake. I am defiantly trying baking with it sometime soon! Let me know if you tried anything interesting with it yet ;)

Rasa xo


Wednesday 19 June 2013

Walk by the river Lea

Last Sunday was quite spontaneous for me. In afternoon I popped in to my neighbour's who suggested we go for a walk. What? For a walk? I know no parks around here in London where I live! However I went along and took Sarah (my new flatmate) with me. After 20min we reached a river Lea surrounded by nature and filled with cute residential boats. Such a quick scenery change!


 I love how people living in the boats grow herbs and veg on their roofs. Such a dainty little garden!

 And the names for the boats are super amazing!
 Sarah found her own ;)
 And we were so lucky as Collin, who lives in one of those boats gave us a tour on living such a lifestyle.
 I love his artistic style, especially his desk that he made himself from upcycled scrap wood!
 And small, but practical kitchen that seems to fit everything....
Including cookery books! Collin said he likes cooking for people and that we are invited for dinner some time soon... Thanks, Collin, for your hospitality ;-)

 On the way back I collected some Elderflower, maybe I will make some cordial tomorrow... 

Monday 17 June 2013

Our first knitting meet!

 We had our first knitting group meet at my house today which was fun. Hopefully I managed to teach how to cast on and knit stitch. Next meet will be on Monday 1st of July (Tottenham). Let me know if you interested, beginners are welcome!



 The sweet treats are to be had of course!

Sunday 16 June 2013

Happy Father's Day!

Today we were celebrating Father's Day, so we baked (and eaten) so many delicious cakes for this beautiful occasion.
 I am especially pleased with the table setting! Marked roads on brown paper, traffic signs on toothpick and cars worked really well together as a theme. Although I must say that the kids loved this more than their dads :-)



 I baked these lovelies,"Rolo" peanut-butter cupcakes! The recipe is bellow.
"ROLO" PEANUT-BUTTER CUPCAKES
Makes 12

For the base (adopted from Peyton and Byrne "British Baking" book)

  • 100g dark chocolate
  • 110g softened butter
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 100g light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 140g plain flour
  • 1.5tsp baking powder
  • 1tsp vanilla extract
  • 100ml buttermilk (or 50ml milk mixed with 50ml yogurt)
For the deco (used basic buttercream mixed with peanut butter)
  • 85g softened butter
  • 120g icing 
  • 0.5tsp vanilla extract
  • 65g peanut butter
  • 12 "Rolo" chocolates
1. Preheat the oven to 170C and line 12-hole muffin tin with baking cases.
2. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, then remove from heat and set aside. 
3. In the bawl, cream the butter and sugars together until pale and fluffy. Incorporate eggs, chocolate melted chocolate, flour, baking powder, vanilla extract and buttercream together. Mix well after each addition,  however if you are using electric mixer (so glad I have it!) you can mix everything in one go. 4. Divide the mixture into 12 baking cases. Bake the cakes for about 15min or until they are springy to touch.
5. To make peanut-butter frosting cream butter and icing sugar together. Mix in peanut-butter and vanilla extract. Spoon the icing into a piping bag fitted with round tip (or other shape if you prefer) and pipe swirls onto the cupcakes. Top it with the "Rolo". 



Wednesday 12 June 2013

My trip to Kuršiu Nerija National Park

I just came back from Lithuania where I took short trip to Kuršiu Nerija National Park (my favourite place in the world) with my friends and Vickie's parents. The cool thing about Kuršiu Nerija is that it is situated on Curonian Spit surrounded by Baltic Sea on one side and Curonian Lagoon on the other. I especially like nature there. Subtle seaside colours have been inspiration to me for years and it still amazes me every time! However... I will start with the village which is quite cute too xx





Because of so much water around the villages, local cousine is mainly based on fish. The most popular is smoked fish (all kinds) and my favourite is fish soup ;-b








 Sandy Dunes are other cool things to visit!














So many fun activities at the beach!




 My summer read is Anna Karenina! I like to read the book before watching the movie :)

 Not forgetting to knit of course! Vickie's mum showed me how to knit lace. I wonder where shall I use  my new still? New summery slippers or a jumper? I will let you know once I decide!

Good things come to an end. I had to take a bus home :(
I am wishing you a wonderful Summer Holiday season! xx