Recipe Review - chocolate chip cookies!

Hi everyone, in today's post I'm going to try something a little bit different - I will be reviewing a recipe (Well, duh. I think you can guess from the title...). If you read my post about What I've been reading recently (not that recent now, though!) then you'll know that I got the Australian Women's Weekly Gluten Free Cookbook not too long ago, and I love it! I made a batch of cookies from it today, and I was delighted with the results!

Here is how you make them:
Ingredients 
125g softened butter
110g brown sugar (It doesn't specify, dark or light. I used dark and it worked well!)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 egg
170g gluten free plain flour (I recommend "Bob's Mill" gluten free flour)
2 tablespoons white rice flour  ("Dove's Farm" do this)
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon of xanthan gum
140g chocolate chips

For the glaze:
150g milk chocolate
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Method

• Preheat your oven to 180°C and line 2 baking trays
• Beat the butter & sugar together until just combined (don't cream them). Add the egg & vanilla.
• Sift in the flours in 2 batches (So it's easier to stir in!)
• Add the chocolate chips (You might need to do some 'quality control'on them at first....)
• Cover the dough, and chill for an hour in the fridge.
• Using wet hand, roll the dough into little balls, pop on the trays, and into the oven!

Just before going in!

• Bake the cookies for 18 minutes of until they're nice & golden
• Make the chocolate glaze by melting together the oil & chocolate. The book says to do it over a pan of simmering water, I did it in the microwave. Just melt it in whatever way.
• Now for the fun bit: once they've cooled a bit, dip the cookies half in their glaze (look at the photos if you don't get what I mean). Leave to cool. Or don't, and eat a warm cookie with melted chocolate.....

Cookies and milk? Yes, please!

So there you have it! Do you have any baking stories or recipes? Let me know in the comments!
Kisses, Rose
xxx

What if.....

Hello everyone!
Today's post is going to be short, sweet, and fun. I am going to basically question... just about everything. Ever. Enjoy!

• What if everyone actually sees colours differently? (So for example, what you see as pink, I see as blue, and Jimmy down the street sees it as yellow?)
• What if there's another country people haven't been to for hundreds of years, but there are still humans living on it?
• What if every freezer in the world just broke down right now, for about a week? (Think of all the melted ice cream....)
• What if a caveman accidently learned how to time travel and just turned up somewhere really random... tomorrow?
• What if drinking tea was thought to make you really sick but no one actually researched it and so everyone just sat there, being scared of tea?
• What if toasters were made of glass, so you could see how well done your toast is?

Well. There you go, people. I think that this is the most random list of anything, ever - but oh well! Next week, I won't be so busy (I hope) and so I'll be able to post something a bit longer and more exciting!!! If you have any interesting what-ifs, or any other ideas on anything, let me know in the comments!
Kisses, Rose
xxx

My travelling bucket list

Hi everyone!
As you know, I love to travel. I have had the privilage of visiting lots of different countries in Europe, but I still have lots of places that I would like to visit. I don't think that I will end up visiting them all, but hey, I can dream, can't I?!
In no particular order, here are a few from my very long list of destinations. The copyright on the photos goes to the people who originally took them. So not me.

1. The Maldives

2. Tokyo, Japan

3. Austria. Especially Vienna.

4.Amsterdam, the Netherlands

5. A safari trip in Kenya

This was a really fun post to write (or type?) and I hope you guys enjoyed it! What places are on your travelling bucket list? Have you ever been to any of the above? Let me know in the comments!
Kisses, Rose
xxx

What I've been reading recently

Hi everyone & happy Monday!
As you all know, I'm a huge fan of reading. I read everything and anything, and it'll all be finished in a very short space of time. However, now that I'm back to school, my afternoons are taken over by classes, homework and studying instead of reading. This gives me less time to read. Sigh. Even still, this post is about the books I've been reading recently (this month). Enjoy!

Here is the little collection I have for you:

The Australian Women's weekly Delicous Gluten-Free Food cookbook
What a long name! This isn't a novel like the others, but I think it deserves a mention.
As you all know, I'm a celiac, which means I can't eat gluten. This cookbook is beautifully designed, and has loads of delicious, creative gluten free recipes. Obviously, I haven't tried all of them, but I've tried about 8 recipes from this book, and they've all been successful!

Rating: 5/5

The Apple Tart Of Hope (by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald)
I read 'Back To Blackbrick', which is also by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, quite a while ago. Whilst this book has been out a while, and I've been meaning to read it for just as long, I never really got around to reading it. I'm glad I did, though!

The book is about a girl called Meg, who lives in Ireland and then moves (reluctantly) to New Zealand with her parents. She leaves her friend Oscar behind her, and they're both really sad to see each other go. A new girl moves into Meg's house, and makes friends with Oscar. Then, Oscar dies.  No body is found, though and Meg is certain he's still out there.

Note- the 'Apple pie' part of the title is because Oscar made delicious apple pies. Lots of people ask whenever I tell them about this book...
I really enjoyed reading this book and would definitely recommend it.
Rating: 4.5/5

What was never said (by Emma  Craigie)
This book made me cry! It took me only a day to finish this short little book, because it was just... amazing.

This book is the story of a girl called Zahra. She moved from Somalia to Bristol and many chapters give us flashbacks to her life back in Somalia - the beautiful trees, her family, and the sad war. The main topic of the book though is that Zahra, along with her (adorable) little sister Samsam, are trying to escape from 'the cutters', and the horrible practice of FGM. For obvious reasons, the book isn't overly
detailed in certain parts. Zahra addresses the book to her her sister Rahma, which I found a bit confusing at first, but I copped on quickly enough.

Rating:5/5 (My favourite of this collection!)

Birthmarked (by Caragh O'Brien)
I'm not sure how I felt about this book. The storyline was great, I think, but the way it was written was slightly disappointing.

Here, we follow Gaia Stone, a 16 year old midwife living outside the Enclave city, in the future. The people from outside the Enclave must deliver a quota of babies to the Enclave every month. These babies are then raised by parents in the Enclave. However, this also leaves parents from outside the Enclave without their own children. When Gaia's parents are arrested for seemingly no reason, Gaia must try to find them, using a combinaion of a hair ribbon given to her that has a variety of strange symbols on it, and sheer courage. Sounds good, doesn't it? Sadly, Caragh O'Brien doesn't give it enough 'oomph' to turn it from the 'meh' level to the 'omigod I need this book in my life!' level. Gaia isn't that easy a character to relate to, and there are many loopholes in the book. I won't explain these in detail, in case any of you want to read it.

Rating: 3/5
I'd love for one of you to read this one in particular, because I'd love to know how other people feel about rhis book.


So there you go! Have you read any of these bnooks before? What did you think of them? If you have any book suggestions, please leave them in the comments below!!!
Kisses, Rose
xxx

It's been a while...

No, I don't really know what possesed me to put an
airplane view photo up here...

Hello!
It's been a while, I know. I've read this kind of blog post before, wondering how on earth some one can stop blogging for so long, and then just turn up. Out of nowhere. Yet here I am, doing exactly the same.

When I started this blog, I thought I'd post at least once a week. That failed. In march, I went off on a holiday that was over a week long, came back, and thought, "Thats it. There goes my blogging life. T'was nice."
However, I still really wanted to post something. So today, I finally am. Are my readers still there? Hello?

In other news, I had an amazing Summer. I kind of travelled Europe, visiting England, Denmark, Estonia, Russia, and Switzerland. Let me know in the comments if you'd like a post about any if them. Or anything else, really.

I think I'll leave you all there. I'll post again soon, I hope. Until then,
Kisses, Rose
xxx

20 Reasons to be Happy!

Hello, Everyone!
Today, it is 'I want you to be happy day'. Don't believe me? Google it. So because of that, I'm doing a blog post that will (hopefully) bring a smile to your face (If you aren't smiling already!) - I'm going to give you 20 resons to be happy!

1) It is nearly Easter
2) It is nearly St Patricks day
3) Somebody out there is probably laughing so hard they could cry right now. Why aren't you?
4) Did you smile at someone today? If so, then you could very possibly have made their day
5) You have great goals and dreams!
6) Your favourite foods exist (Chocolate, I'm looking at you)
7) Everything bad that happened yesterday is over. Forever. No need to look back.
8) You have friends who really care about you
9) Lush bath bombs
10) Baby ducklings
11) You can read this. That makes you so much luckier than millions of others out there
12) Some people completely recovered from cancer today!
13) There is only one you on this whole world
14) You have a beautiful smile
15) It is also 'If pets had thumbs' day
16) People are 20% prettier than the person they see in the mirror
17) Your blog is amazing (If you have a blog!)
18) Somewhere in the world, there is a lost dog poster with a picture of a cat on it
19) Your home country is amazing! (Especially if you're living in Ireland...)
20) Those days that you have that just get better and better

There we go, only a short post for today. Happy 'I want you to be happy' day, and  bye!
Kisses, Rose
xxx

Ps- Continue down in the comments :-)

My February Favourites

Hello everybody!
I'ts nearly the end of February. Which is completely crazy. It was new years day like... yesterday! So today, I'm going to show you my February favourites. This is actually my first favourites post on this blog, so I'm really excited to begin!

Doc Martens
For Christmas, I got these doc martens from my aunt, and I love them! They took a while to break into, unfortunately and so my feet were really sore, but now they're really comfy, and I wear them everywhere. Plus, they're red. Who doesn't love red doc martens??? I wear them with everything. Well, actually I don't, but I wear them a lot, and I love them so so much!!!!

Simple Moisturising Facewash                        

Onto something a bit less exciting than my docs, I've started using this Simple moisturising facewash this month, and I really like it. It lathers really well, and it also is really gentle on my face (unlike the facewash I was using before this!) So I would definatly reccomend this to... everyone. I got it in superdrug for about €3, which is really good value because it comes in a big 150ml bottle.

Body Shop body butter (Strawberry scent)

As you might know from my Winter Handcreams post, I recently got a strawberry scent body shop hand cream. I decided it was a bit lonely, so I got it a matching body butter. My skin gets really dry in the winter, d this is perfect for it! It feels kind of balmy, so unlike other body butters I'm not all greasy after putting it on, plus it smells great. Thumbs up from me!

Yankee candle Summer Scoop

Even though its only February, I'm really excited for Summer so when I saw this in the shop, I decided it might make Summer come quicker, at least weatherwise (The weather has been really stormy here recently). Inevitabley, it didn't change the weather. It does, however, smell like heaven in a jar. I bought the little sampler size (as you can see) but its nearly gone so I'm going to have to replace it with one of the big jars that they have soon.

Pig Phone Stand

For €2 in Penneys, this is the cutest, funnest thing ever! Basically, its just a little pig and it sticks to a hard surface. You pop your phone against it, and boom. This is so useful for youtube, netflix, anything really. I think they do them with little men as well as pigs, if thats what you want.

Glasses

The last, although really the biggest  thing I got this month has been my glasses. As it happens, I'm kind of very blind and I need glasses for reading and distance. So earlier this month, I got two pairs. My first pair are red and black with a little floral pattern on the inside, they are by Replay and I got these to match my docs. My other pair are by Red Or Dead and they're brown toroiseshell and I wear these ones for school usually. I was really nervous at first that people wouldn't like my glasses, but thankfully they do, and it is so great to be able to see properly!

That's everything then in my February Favourites. Do you have any of these? Do any of you wear glasses as well? Let me know in the comments! See you next week...

Kisses, Rose

xxx