Cornbread Muffins

Last weekend J made a delicious Chili Con Carne for our tea. He started cooking first thing in the morning and by the time we tucked in around 7pm the flavours had all intensified and the smell was truly mouth watering. Unfortunately I forgot to get my camera out while he was cheffing away, fortunately I didn't forget when I cooked up my favourite accompaniment to Chili, Cornbread.



I always make mine muffin style, I think because the first time me and my Mum ever tried these it stuck to the pan big time, absolute disaster! You can make this in a cast iron skillet though if you prefer, just make sure it is well greased.
I also like mine plain, as there is nothing better than a warm cornbread muffin straight from the tray split with your thumbs and given a dollop of butter, it melts into a crumbly sweet mouthful that goes perfectly with the tang of tomato in the Chilli.


Adapted from about five different recipes over the years, but I started with Martha Hall Foose's version from Screen Doors and Sweet Tea

You will need:
170g Cornmeal
170g Plain Flour
1tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Ground Cumin
4tsp Baking Powder
3 tbsp Runny Honey
2 Eggs
250ml Buttermilk
50ml Milk
50g Unsalted Butter - Melted

Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Centigrade (Gas mark 5) and line your muffin tins with muffin papers, I made exactly 12 muffins from this mix.



In a large bowl mix together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt and cumin.



In a medium sized jug break in your eggs and mix in the buttermilk, milk, honey and melted butter.
I don't know about you but I always have to warm my honey to get it to go liquid again, I stick the jar in a bowl of freshly boiled water and it does the trick.



Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the liquid mixture in while mixing on a low speed using a handheld mixer (or using the paddle attachment on a stand mixer)



Once brought together scrape down the sides and mix on medium until the batter is smooth but for no longer than one minute.



Leave to rest while the baking powder does its stuff for a couple of minutes, then using an ice cream scoop, or a spoon if you don't have one, scoop one measure into each muffin case. Lick clean the bowl and scoop.



Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden on the top and springy when pressed. Allow to cool in the tray for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack.



Scoff the lot with a dollop of butter! Yum!

A few things...

This week has been both boring and eventful but in small ways, we have made some progress with small things around the house, J has officially got a garage he can work in and I finally have shelves in my kitchen.

My jars of ingredients have a nice home that isn't our worktop, but I now have a dilemma with labelling (for J's benefit rather than mine) as you can't see the ones I stuck on the top. I may have to get creative.

My tomato plants sprouted mid week and I did a little dance of happiness, no sign of my strawberries yet though.

I have got into a groove with using my cookbooks to plan meals. I have been collecting cookbooks for more years than I can count and it feels good to be finally using them properly, the pork chops with apples in Rachel Allen's book pictured was delicious for friday night tea.

Our canine friends haven't visited for a whole week because it has been so wet out, I miss the magic that the lid lifting on this jar can create. Bums on floors pronto!

This book has been a bit of a god send lately, helping me to suss out my new-ish camera, I highly recommend it and may do a full review at some point.

How has your week been? I hope you all have a lovely bank holiday weekend :)

This week

Has pretty much been all about Pinterest. I officially have an addiction to scrolling the Home Decor section. We have had our offer accepted on the house we were looking at so my head is full of ideas for what we would like to do to it. No purchases are being made until we officially have the house but a girl needs to plan these things!!

Here are a few of my favourite pins from this week, you can see the rest on my "Home Stuff" board here

Georgina Carr's pin on Pinterest. Georgina Carr's pin on Pinterest.

As you can see I have a bit of a thing for open shelving in Kitchens, and I am really loving the idea of Ochre yellow in the living room, but who knows what we will end up with eventually :) What's your favourite home decor trend at the moment?

Sunday Snowdrops

I have a thing for wandering around the gardens of posh country estates. I know next to nothing about flowers (my poor much missed Grandad George is probably watching over us all absolutely appalled by this having been a gardener) but I do know that I love how they look, how they smell, and how they make me feel.

Different flowers invoke different feelings to me, and there is nothing I admire more during the misery of February than Snowdrops, their delicate stems that appear in swathes and brave the crisp winter winds remind me to persevere through the tough stuff to get the joyous outcome at the end.

This weekend me and James popped back to Doddington Hall, a new favourite place of mine to visit since my trip before Christmas. Their gardens officially opened on sunday for the season and their speciality is bulbs, every sunday they are open for you to wander around the grounds admiring the landscape and the beautiful views along with the pretty flowers as new varieties begin to appear.


















Apparently, I had to post this last picture because James said it was the best thing we saw there, as Lister make old trucks. He will always choose engines over nature *sigh*

I am really regretting not just buying a season ticket for the gardens (£25), as I can see them being a new favourite haunt for the weekends. If you are nearby and fancy visiting it is £6 to get into the gardens, and when it is less wet there are hours worth of walks across the estate. The cafe is definitely worth wetting your whistle in too (best carrot cake I have ever eaten, no lie!)

This Week

I catalogued two cook books worth of recipes. I am indexing them all in the old fashioned drawers James got me for christmas as at last count I had 47 cookbooks, and they are a nightmare to navigate.

I viewed the venue for an event James and his friends are planning for this summer, very exciting!

I hosted a very successful event for National Libraries Day about helping people to read on their gadgets. I feel quite proud of the queue I had at one point.

I rediscovered my love of peanut butter on crumpets for breakfast. Can't eat them too often though or I will resemble a beach ball!

I cooked a delicious gnocchi recipe from A Beautiful Mess. It was the first time I remember having gnocchi and I really enjoyed it, though next time I think I will add a lot more spice and a good helping of parmesan.

I Finished a wonderful book, which I can't wait to review.

Finally,

I spent a huge amount of time in meetings for mortgages and viewing houses. They aren't kidding when they say this stuff is stressful, and cups of tea and paperwork are no fun so I took no pictures.

How was your week?

This Week

I thought I would share some snapshots of my week today. I am becoming more and more snap happy since I invested in a new camera, and that makes me feel all proud of myself. My memory isn't the best so pictures make me feel a little more secure in the knowledge that I will remember things actually happening.



1. I have been waking up really early lately, enough to laze around in bed for ages and still go for a run and get home to see sunrise.

2. He always looks worried, but here he almost looks like he's being accommodating of my picture taking!

3. I ate several healthy meals this week but gave up on Friday, it has been a stressful week!

4. Accidentally bought new boots for work from Clarks, they are oh so comfy!

5. Little Sis was 21 on Thursday without us, she is coming home today for celebrations though, and I am a little excited to see her open her present, I think I done good this year! :)

6. Testing my camera skills on the frost the other morning.

7. I made a HUGE batch of Ultimate Swedish Meatballs for tea from The Londoner's recipe, they were delicious!

8. Also made the wonderful Cider With Rosie's Pomegranate salad this week, not once, but twice! I can't get enough of it :)

9. I can't go to Bill's but I can cook it at home.

I am on Instagram, and I post pretty regularly there, mainly food and animals if I am honest but if you fancy following me I am there as georginathelibrarian

Lazy Sunday: Walkies

With it starting to get properly winter cold around these parts, I find myself reminiscing back to when I could walk outside and not feel like my toes were about to drop off. I took these photos in November, and the sky looked so beautiful and cloud free that I wanted to share them. Lets hope we get some more days like this soon!



This is Lewis, he is the best of dogs, so is the one I am allowed to take for walks (meaning he is the only one that won't drag me through the mud, because he is civilised!) I am a bit of a softy though, so J has to come along to do the shouting when Lew sniffs something particularly good.

When we are walking, I constantly have that song by LMFAO "Sexy and I know it" in my head, the bit where it goes "wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle yeah!" because that is exactly how Lew walks, he is a little bit of a poncey dog, but he's cute, so its ok.





I really do love the countryside here, and I am so glad that I came back. I recently found out that not only is my job going to be secure with the changes at work but I have also wrangled myself a promotion, so 2014 is looking good so far! We can finally start looking for places to live and start making our own home. There is so much to look forward to.

P.S. There is nothing cuter than a man and his dog :)

Happy Sunday!

This Week

I thought I would try and do these summing up posts every so often that I have seen other bloggers do. Sometimes you just need to tell people how your week has been, so here we go! This week...

• Mince pies consumed: 3 (I imagine this will be significantly higher next week!)
• Last Sunday we celebrated a good friend's birthday at the pub with a great meal and even better chatter. Note to self, recreate the chicken stuffed with cranberry and brie!
• The middle of the week has been really very stressful, at work we are all now officially at risk of redundancy, so it has been a week of paperwork, forms, meetings and the like, which isn't exactly fun in the run up to christmas, but has to be done. 
• On the plus side, we had our work christmas do on Friday, which was fun, I really do love socialising with the ladies, after having a pretty difficult week emotionally going out for dinner with everyone really lifted my spirits.
• I may have convinced a few people to head to Chatsworth with my last post, the power of a good photograph!
• I spent this evening with family regaling over old stories and new and toasting to my Dad with some of the last cans of beer he bought. It was his last haul and it was nice to share it amongst ourselves while we all had a good belly laugh and tried to see the bright side of what will be a hard few weeks to come.
• I finished wrapping the last christmas present I needed to on Thursday, and feel really proud of myself for being so organised. I have gone a little ribbon crazy but I think they all look pretty and I want to take pictures of them all before they get ripped open.

How has your week been?

Sunday: Origins Face Masks

Ok, it's fess up time! As much as I love skincare and have battled with keeping my skin nice, I am shockingly bad at keeping a routine. I can manage with the day to day routine, that I don't forget, but ask me to do an extra step once or twice a week and it goes straight out of my mind.



I have been making big improvements to this lately though since I picked up these two lovelies. Origins Clear Improvement Active Charcoal mask and the Drink Up Intensive Overnight mask are my only masks of use at the moment. I picked them up after seeing so many rave reviews about them on YouTube and the like, but I have to admit I was pretty darn sceptical. Masks just never seem to have a wow factor for me, they don't make a huge difference any more than a chemical exfoliator does when it comes to getting the gunk out of my face so I find it hard to get excited about them, but these ones have a lasting effect.

The Clear Improvement mask pretty much does what it says on the tube, it is designed to suck as much rubbish out of your pores as possible by using activated charcoal, china clay and lechetin. I have used a fair few clay masks as these were pretty much where my mask exploits stopped previous to this combination, but this one I like best of them all. It is a light product, it doesn't feel like my face is caked when I have it on, and although it dries out before removal it doesn't make my face feel like I have just used something highly abrasive, you know the feeling, tight and dry.

The Drink Up Intensive mask is the one I was really sceptical of, so much so I only picked up the small travel sized tube but I will be purchasing the standard size as soon as this is empty. I had used a moisturising mask a grand total of once before I picked this up, oily skin and the words "moisturising mask" always had me running for the hills, but since my new hydrating routines seem to be working to quell the tides on my t-zone I thought I would give it a go.
The mask uses avocado oil and apricot kernel oil to replace lost moisture, and Japanese seaweed is in there to help repair that barrier I was talking about in my last skincare post. Let me just say that this mask smells delicious, every time I go to use it I want to eat it, apricots smell damn good! I was really paranoid about how it would feel to just leave this on my face as it is a bit thicker than a moisturiser even though it is a gel, but honestly it doesn't take too long to sink in so that skin is just slightly tacky and is in no way uncomfortable, and if you want you can wipe off any excess (though my skin is clearly so thirsty it wants more!)



This isn't going to be absolutely raving about these, because as I say, I just don't see huge improvements in the short term with using these things (I know Glam Glow has had a lot of hype lately for doing just that) but these two have been making a difference in the longer term.

On sunday nights I steam my face while I shower, double cleanse with my Emma Hardie balm and a flannel, and then apply the Clear Improvement mask. I let it sit while I watch the first part of Downton (God knows which show I am going to have to substitute this with now) and then wash it off. I find my skin to be quite clear and fairly decongested after doing this, but doubling up my masks has been a bit of a revelation to me.

When I thought about using different masks I would naturally think they had to be used on different days, but since seeing Anna's post about layering up your masks I have been slathering the Drink Up Intensive mask on afterwards and it always means I have really glowy and soft skin come monday morning, and who doesn't want a perk like that to brighten up a monday? The effects usually last until mid week before my skin starts to get a little congested again but it is no where near as bad as it was before this combination, and over the past few weeks I have noticed it becoming less and less of a problem. Using the moisturising mask also means my skin stays looking bright for the whole week, which is a massive improvement from my normal dull complexion!

I have been managing to do this every week for a while now so I know it is the method for me, it slots in easily to a spot where I am relaxing anyway and it doesn't take much effort to do, definitely the way forward.
Now I just need to venture into that third step, and after spotting a Ren discount code on Kate's blog, I think I might just invest in the Radiance Renewal Mask to slot in between these two Origins wonders. If I can keep this up one day a week I think I shall be set!

What are your sunday routines?

Lazy Sunday: Autumn

It is officially autumn in my small part of the world, know how I know this?



Isn't that cute? I do love a pumpkin with a face.

Anyway, this past sunday it may have been autumn but I tell you it felt like summer. We had some really warm weather and decided to take advantage of it.

My other half has been trying to get me to go for more bike rides, and I have to admit once I am on them I do enjoy myself, I just have to be dragged away from my book in the first place.

We hopped on our bicycles and set off through the countryside. We had to stop to cross a field so I thought I would snap the view for you.



Those there are sugar beet fields, apparently a speciality of ours. I tried a nibble, it was indeed very sweet.

Eventually we got to our destination, a friend of ours invited us to pick apples from his tree. Check out the spoils.



I really enjoyed the ride even though it was a very long one for me (we usually only do little trips) and it is inspiring me to get a new bike. I have been looking at them for a while and have decided that a 'sit up and beg' dutch style would be more suited for me comfort wise. I have a very upright posture and leaning forward for the handle bars really hurts my neck and back.

I have been admiring these ones, number 3 is my absolute favourite.

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

But I think actually I would like to get a vintage one second hand and repaint it so that it is the same shade of turquoise as the blog. It is my favourite shade, and these bikes are all very expensive and not quite perfect.

Did you have unusually hot weather last sunday? How did you spend the day?