Perfect Lemonade recipe

Hot day? want to cool down then I have the perfect thing for you

Yummy!

INGREDIENTS

1 cup sugar (can reduce to 3/4 cup)

1 cup water (for the simple syrup)

1 cup lemon juice

3 to 4 cups cold water (to dilute)

METHOD

1 Make simple syrup by heating the sugar and water in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved completely.

2 While the sugar is dissolving, use a juicer to extract the juice from 4 to 6 lemons, enough for one cup of juice.

3 Add the juice and the sugar water to a pitcher. Add 3 to 4 cups of cold water, more or less to the desired strength. Refrigerate 30 to 40 minutes. If the lemonade is a little sweet for your taste, add a little more straight lemon juice to it.

Serve with ice, sliced lemons.

Make and Owl

Have a go making your own owl! the template to use is below :)

Have a go, Make an owl

Template

owls!

xxVickyxx

Owl Knitting Pattern :)

Having fun with cable patterns :)

CO 3 sts.

Row 1: k

Row 2: k1, inc in next st, k1

Owl pattern

Row 3: k1, inc in next st, k to end

Row 4: Rep Row 3 (6 sts)

Row 5: k2, yo, k to end

Rows 6 to 31: Rep Row 5

Row 32: k2, yo, K7, p3, k8, p3, k to end

Row 33: k2, yo, k11, p8, k to end

Row 34: k2, yo, k8, p3, C4B, C4F, p3, k to end

Row 35: k2, yo, k12, p8, k to end

Row 36: k2, yo, k9, p3, k8, p3, k to end

Row 37: k2, yo, k13, p8, k to end

Row 38: k2, yo, k10, p3, k8, p3, k to end

Row 39: k2, yo, k14, p8, k to end

Row 40: k2, yo, k11, p3, k8, p3, k to end

Row 41: k2, yo, k15, p8, k to end (43 sts)

Row 42: k1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k9, p3, C4B, C4F, p3, k to end

Row 43: k1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k13, p8, k to end

Row 44: k1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k8, p3, k1, P2, k2, P2, k1, p3, k to end

Row 45: k1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k12, P1, k2, P2, k2, P1, k to end

Row 46: k1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, K7, p3, k8, p3, k to end

Row 47: k1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k11, p8, k to end

Row 48: k1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k6, p3, C4B, C4F, p3, k to end

Row 49: k1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k10, p8, k to end

Row 50: k1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k to end

Rows 51 - 77: Rep Row 50 until there are 7 sts

Row 78: k1, k2tog, k to end

Rows 79 - 81: Rep Row 78 (3 sts at end of row 78)

xxVickyxx

Massage Bar Recipie

What You'll Need:

85g Beeswax

15g Soy Wax

55g Cocoa Butter

55g Shea Butter

68g Jojoba Oil

28g Sweet Almond Oil

20-50 drops Fragrance or Essential Oil

Instructions

1. Melt the beeswax in a pyrex jug in the Microwave (or a double boiler)

2. Add the other base ingredients and return to your heat source and heat until totally liquid

3. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes stirring occasionally

4. Add Fragrance/Essential Oils
5. Pour into prepared mould

Once the lotion bar has hardened, if it doesn't pop out really easily, place it in the refrigerator to cool it, and it will then pop out nicely. As this is quite a large mould, it takes several hours to cool completely.

If you don't have soy wax on hand we suggest substituting extra Cocoa Butter or Shea Butter - the Shea has a lower melt point, but the Cocoa Butter makes a harder bar.

Bath Bomb Recipie

Gather your ingredients:

*1 part citric acid


* 2 parts baking soda


* Witch hazel


* Colouring of your choice


* Fragrance oil of your choice


* Dome Shaped Mold

BLEND BLEND BLEND BLEND the citric acid and baking soda

this step is super important if you don’t blend well, you end up with a grainy bomb. With larger batches try using a mixer.

Once you’ve blended really well, add your colorant. Dry pigments or a specialty bath fizzy colorant like La Bombes work best – don’t add too much though – the color shows up once you add the witch hazel.

Add fragrance oils to your personal nose preference. Now, this is the difficult part. Spritz (with a squirt bottle) the witch hazel onto your batch while stirring with the other hand. When your batch sticks together when squished, you need to start putting it in molds – time is of the essence. If you wait too long, the mixture will get hard. If you spritz too much, the mixture will be too wet and “grow” (start the fizzing reaction) on you. Put the bombs in molds – wait a few minutes and tap them out. Let them air dry for 3 or 4 hours and voila! Wonderful, hard bath bombs. The harder you pack the bath bombs, the more dense, heavy, and durable bomb you will get. xxVickyxx

Solid Shampoo Recipie

Easy to use and no more searching for your bottle of shampoo, and its easy to keep to hand!


Shampoo Ingredients

2 lb 10 oz olive oil

1 lb 7 oz of solid-type vegetable shortening

1 lb coconut oil

10-1/4 oz lye (sodium hydroxide)

2 pints water

1-1/2 oz glycerine

1/2 oz alcohol (I'd use vodka or other food-quality ethanol and call it close enough. Do not use methanol.)

1-1/2 oz castor oil

essential oils (optional), such as peppermint, rosemary, lavender, for fragrance and therapeutic properties

Let's Make Shampoo!

In a large pan, mix together the olive oil, shortening, and coconut oil.

In a well-ventilated area, preferably wearing gloves and eye protection in case of accidents, mix the lye and water. Use a glass or enamelled container. This is an exothermic reaction, so heat will be produced.

Warm the oils to 95°F-98°F and allow the lye solution to cool to the same temperature. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to set both containers into a large sink or pan full of water that is at the correct temperature.

When both mixtures are at the proper temperature, stir the lye solution into the oils. The mixture will turn opaque and may darken.

When the mixture has a creamy texture, stir in the glycerine, alcohol, castor oil, and any fragrance oils or colorants.

You have a couple of options here. You can pour the shampoo into soap molds and allow it to harden. To use this shampoo, either lather it with your hands and work it into your hair or else shave flakes into hot water to liquefy it.

The other option is to make liquid shampoo, which involves adding more water to your shampoo mixture and bottling it.

xxVickyxx

Chocolate and pistachio cupcakes

 

I seem to always go through phases of buying massive amounts of nuts to snack on and getting tired of them quickly and the massive bag of pistachios I bought last month were no different. Hating to waste over 200g of shelled pistachios I resolved to put the in my cupboard and search the Internet for a delicious recipe involving them. A seemingly easy task, which led me no where.

Finished cakes.

I decided to make my own cupcake recipe and see how it turned out and to every one's surprise, except mine - they were made to my vision after all- they turned out pretty well. So I am now going to share my recipe with everyone else!

Makes 12 Cupcakes.

Ingredients:

200g Sugar

200g Margarine

200g Self raising flour

2 Eggs

200g Pistachios (which will need shelling -_- My poor fingers hated this part)

100g of milk or plain chocolate (on your preference)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 175C /350F /Gas Mark 4 (I Used the Internet for the Fahrenheit and Gas Mark conversions so you might want to double check!)

350 degrees F = 175 degrees C = Gas Mark 4

Cream the margarine and sugar together. Put most of the shelled pistachios into a blender, leaving 12-24 nuts whole for decoration.

Pistachio from the blender.

Authors Note: I tried to do this this with a hand blender attachment with my electric hand whisk and they went everywhere!Which shouldn't have come as a surprise!

Add the ground pistachios then sieve in the flour and the eggs a bit at a time, folding the mixture together till all the ingredients are combined.

Put the mixture into the cake cases and put into the oven for approx 25 mins.

Out of the oven.

Decoration:

Make a double boiler with a pan of hot water with a heat proof bowl over the top and melt your chocolate. Crush/chop your remaining pistachios to make smaller pieces. cover the top of the cakes with chocolate and sprinkle pistachio pieces over them, leave somewhere for the chocolate to set.

ENJOY!

xxVickyxx