It's A Little Bit Funny

Sorry it's been a while since my last post, but I've been super busy spending time with my friends and family and re-packing for uni. I always find you don't realise how much stuff you have until you have to pack for uni! I'm moving into a gorgeous flat in Birmingham this weekend and I am so excited!!! I feel so grown up! I don't know how long we'll be without internet, so I might try to schedule some posts otherwise I probably won't have another post on here for a few weeks.

One of the martini cocktails and one of many wine buckets dotted around the table

Last Friday, it was my friend's 21st birthday and we went to Thirst in SoHo to celebrate. It was a quaint little bar, which had a fabulous selection of yummy cocktails. It was really cool watching the bar staff making them from scratch and even cooler trying a tonne of different ones! It was super busy in the bar and there was a little bit of drama where the bar manager upset the birthday girl because he'd promised a reserved area for 8pm and there were people refusing to leave it... After almost two hours, we finally got given the reserved area and he felt bad, so he gave us 5 bottles of free wine! At the time, we thought this was brilliant... The next morning, not so much! I love spending time with my school friends when we're all back home :) I sometimes worry that it might be awkward because we don't see each other during term time, but it always feels like we've never left school and I always find myself feeling stupid for worrying for no reason!

I was listening to music on Youtube earlier and came across One Direction's new song. I didn't think I would like it, but omgosh I actually love it! It's super catchy and I love the video!

After listening to this, I decided to search this year's X Factor Auditions and came across Janet Devlin's personal Youtube where she's uploaded covers of a number of songs. Her voice is actually amazing! My favourite cover she's done has to be 'Your Song', which she did for her audition. I hope she does well throughout the contest. Whenever I watch X Factor, I always feel rather talentless and it kind of makes me sad and I hate to admit it, kind of jealous! I don't know if that makes sense, but does anyone else ever feel like that?

Sorry for the long rambles! Thank you for reading. xoxo, Joy

Recipe: Apple Crumble

At home, we have a huge apple tree in our garden. It doesn't normally produce that many apples, but this year we've had loads! My mum has been picking them and making lots of apple juice. Yesterday, I decided to try something different with the apples and made apple crumble for the first time. It tasted super yummy (if I say so myself!) and I'll definitely be making it again, since the ingredients are so basic and are things we always have. (Sorry for the Blackberry photos from this point on. My camera ran out of battery as I was about to take the first photo!)

I followed a recipe on UK Student Life and I really recommend checking out the recipe. It has step by step instructions and pictures, which I found really useful. The recipe required brown sugar, but I didn't have any so I replaced it with caster sugar and it tasted fine. The only difference is that the crumble is a lot lighter. I have simplified the recipe below:

Ingredients:
Apples (I used 5 small apples picked from the apple tree in my garden)
1oz granulated sugar
1oz brown/caster sugar (You could probably get away with 2oz caster sugar, rather 1oz of each)
4oz flour
2oz butter

To make the apple crumble:

1. Wash, peel and slice the apples.

2. Place the apples into the bottom of an overproof dish.

3. Mix the sugar and flour. Add the butter into the mixture in small chunks and rub to make your crumbly topping.

4. Sprinkle the crumble mix on top of the apples.

5. Bake in a preheated oven at 175C for 30-40minutes.

6. Allow to cool and then EAT! I served mine with some Walls Soft Scoop ice cream, which was a nice cold complement as the apple crumble was still a little warm.

Do you like apple crumble?

Thank you for reading. xoxo, Joy