Oreo Balls Recipe

My first recipe post! These are really easy to make (especially if you have no gas and can't use an oven...like me.) But onto the recipe for these tasty tasty balls. ;D This is gonna be an extremely picture heavy post...

What I spend my wages on.

Ingredients
You will need:
- 2 packs of Oreos.
- A load of chocolate of your choosing, I used more than half of that massive bar.
- Either cream cheese (Philadelphia will do) or a little tub of icing. (we went all out and used Betty Crocker chocolate fudge)
- Toothpicks/Cocktail sticks.
- Icing to decorate, if you want.

nomnom.

Smash it up as fine as possible. 

This stuff smells amazing.

Add it to your mess!

Keep mixing until it reaches a nice fudgey consistency. 

Make your bawlls. (Laura sacrificed her clean hands for this.)

Yummy balls. 

Melt your chocolate! (I did mine in the microwave, stopping every minute or so to make sure it's not burnt.)

Dip your bawlls in the chocolate. 

Took a lot longer than expected. 

Pop them in the fridge to set.

Take this opportunity to clean your hands :P

When they're set, take them out and cover them in silly patterns.

I was so proud :I

I TRIED to make a rosebud. Not sure why it's blue though.

Laura went crazy on the decorating. 

This beast.

So yeah! That's how you make oreo balls. Ours are still setting in the fridge and I'm slightly reluctant to eat them, it's like eating my love-children D: 

<3

Cybercandy Mystery Box

Cybercandy offers a great range of worldwide sweets and drinks, and I'd been debating buying some stuff off there for a while but every time I pick some stuff out it usually goes way over £20 for a few sweets. So, when I saw their mystery parcel section it tipped me over the edge and I had to order one. My mystery parcel was the "Cybercandy Bargain Mystery Parcel worth over £25" with £25 worth of sweets for £14.99. I also threw in some Tootsie Pop Drops and a York Peppermint Pattie which I'd tried before. 


My parcel arrived pretty quickly and I rushed home after work to tear it open in excitement. LO AND BEHOLD! 

I got a lot of AWESOME stuff. It was mostly American and I think I only had one thing that was Japanese but for £15 it's an impressive haul. I got: 
- 1x KitKat Chunky Cookies and Cream. (Absolutely amazing, really creamy with bits of Oreos inside.)
- 1x PB Twix (I couldn't eat this because of my nut allergy :c )
- 1x Dipdab (The same as the ones we get in the UK.)
- 1x Junior Mints. (Awesome. Like Mint Poppets but creamier and nicer.)
- 1x Strawberry Turkish Taff. (Not what I expected but really nice, soft and tasted like strawberry sweets.)
- 1x Liquorice Car. (I didn't eat it because I hate liquorice.)
- 1x Toffee Apple lollipop. (Very very sweet apple candy lollipop with toffee covering it.)
- 1x Apple Air Heads (Scarily green with a very strong apple flavouring.)
- 1x Goo Goo Cluster (Couldn't eat this but it was peanuts mixed up with chocolate and marshmellows, looked nice.)
- 4x Tootsie Pops. (Very sweet. Kinda hurts your teeth after a while but that tootsie center is delish.)
- 1x Tootsie Pop Drops (As above, but smaller and without the stick.)
- 1x box of Orange Airheads. (Not my kinda sweets, small orange flavour waxy balls.)
- 1x Cherry Ripe (LOVED IT. Like a Bounty bar but with cherry flavouring.)


Here's a few pics.

My lovely Cherry Ripe in its shiny packaging.

And after I'd taken a huge nom. It's literally like a thin Bounty with cherries. I need to get more of these. <3

Strange Hello Kitty sweets I left off the list because I don't know what they are. They're grape flavour tiny tiny balls, you bite into them and there's a strange popping sensation. It gets weirder because they taste more like white chocolate than grape. 

Eerily green Air Heads. 

Epic haul of sweets that lasted me a few days :D Go buy some! 


<3

Lockstone Pub Lunch

Lockstone, 22 Market Place, Nottingham NG10 1LT, 0115 946 9950.

On a surprisingly sunny day, (for Britain) me and my buddy Laura decided to have a bite to eat at Lockstone, seeing as it looked like a semi decent place to eat in Long Eaton. We wandered in and had a snoop around and it all looked pretty good, nice lighting and seating and OHYES Costa Coffee! I was sold and ushered her to a booth to have a look at the menu. 

Pretty good pub lunch stuff, the usual burgers and fish and chips, jacket potatoes and salads. But me and my carnivore friend were set on steak. So I wandered up to the bar to order food and get us some drinks, of course I get ID'd, what with looking 15 and having pink hair (And being about 5ft...). But I'm overjoyed as they have one of my favourite drinks ever. 

Brothers Toffee Apple Cider. 

I bloody love this stuff. I can't stand normal apple cider but this stuff is great, it actually tastes like toffee apples! Nice and sweet and really refreshing with ice in a glass. I got Laura a Kopparberg Pear cider which is equally as lovely, but I find it a little sickly after half a bottle. 

But back to the food. We settle ourselves down and after a short while the waiter brings our food over, but there's a problem. 

"I don't know which is the rare one and which is the medium one..." Uh, okay. So I say it's no problem, we'll figure it out when we start eating. Then he hands us our cutlery and they only have one steak knife. 

One steak knife. Really? 

Well, it looked pretty good. And it tasted good too, though BOTH steaks were medium in the end. The onion rings were the best part of the meal though, nice and crunchy :D We both tossed aside the tomato and tucked in and we enjoyed it. Laura finished hers first (because she's a hungry beast) and the waiter pounced on us. When he asked if we were finished and Laura said yes, when I say "No, I'm still eating" it's not a cue to take both our plates and leave me mid chew with a knife and fork in my hand,  staring at you blankly as you steal my food. 

</3 

  

The Fails of 2010

[I've been needing to update my blog for a while now, but I haven't really had anything interesting enough to blog about :I Quite a few new posts will be up soon seeing as I've found a new favourite place to OMNOMNOM at The Cheesecake Shop.]


Happy belated New Year! :D Yes, I know this is very late but I've been rather busy. I seem to be 22 now, as of January 15th :] But before we go onto 2011, we really should take a look at a few of the FAILS of 2010. 


The Plough Christmas Dinner. 


Seriously, what the hell was that all about? I know we only paid about £10 each for a 3 course meal but it was pretty darn shoddy. We came here for our work christmas dinner and someone who works with me knows the owner so we got a good deal. You couldn't fault the staff and the prices but I'll let you take a look at the food for yourself. 

It started out nice enough, the bubble coated prawns with sweet chilli sauce were really nice, all crunchy and salty goodness. I'm a huge fan of prawns, especially these kind so I also ate the tails. Crunchy goodness. So after the starter I was pretty excited for the rest of the meal. My friend Charlotte unfortunately didn't have the same experience...

Mmm, tempting. Charlotte chose the garlic mushrooms for her starter and we just stared at them blankly for a moment before bursting out into fits of laughter at these sad looking balls. She took a bite out and got squirted with grease, before watching what looked like an eyeball roll out of the breadcrumbs. Fun stuff. 

Next up was the main course, what I was so looking forward to. Well, my steak had cheese on it for some reason, which wasn't on the menu, but hey I like cheese. Until I tasted it. Rubbery mild cheddar makes me so sad. The steak itself was nice, they cooked it rare like I  wanted (much to the gagging noises of my colleagues. :P). The veg was overcooked I'm afraid and the potatoes were soggy, so I was pretty disappointed. But, again there was worse. 

Christmas dinner. Heh. Looks yummy right? :I I don't think I even need to describe this. 


Flipz

I'd been having cravings for these for a long, long, long, long, long, long time. I mean years and years. I'd had these when I was little and always remembered liking them so I tried making my own a few times just by dipping pretzels in melted chocolate and they were always great, I'm a massive fan of saltiness in chocolate. So I ordered some off the internet, thinking I'd get something EPIC to snack on and have something to blog about. I got them from American Food UK and I was really excited but they were all stuck together and had turned white in places. 

So sad. 


</3

Bruges

Yeah, Belgium was awesome! Gonna keep this one brief because this was a while ago and I seem to have misplaced my food notebook with all the details. </3 These chocolate boobs caught my attention, they were everywhere! Bruges is basically a town FULL of shops. It's amazing. There must have been about 70 chocolate shops in a mile radius, there was way too much temptation.

My beautiful haul of Belgium sweeties and chocolates. The box is full of babelutte chocolates from Babelutte by Bartholomeus which I will blog when I get the chance. Other things in here are some marzipan balls, 3 different hot chocolate sticks, some rock candy (My brother is lactose intolerant, poor kid) and some banana filled chocolate.

How pretty are these chocolates?! They're all numbered and came in a really cute box in a bag. The shop we got them from was all white and minimalistic, and smelled sooo chocolatey. They were 20 euros a box, which is 25 chocolates. So a little expensive but worth it. 

I had a slight inner struggle trying to pick out only 5 flavours because they all sounded so good but I ended up choosing: 

#04 - Dark Chocolate / Babelutte / Peppermint. 

#08 - Milk Chocolate / Gingerbread / Orange.

#09 - Milk Chocolate / Passion Fruit. 

#25 - Dark Chocolate / Strawberry / Pepper / Lemon. 

#58 - Dark Chocolate / Babelutte / Sea Salt. 

Another thing I loved about Belgium was beasty hotdogs for only 4 euros. Ohyes. My kinda town.

<3

Cadbury Hot Choc Chunks

Cadbury Hot Choc Chunks - £1.50 - £3.50 

(Just a short post)

My chocolate cravings were getting the best of me and while rummaging through the cupboards I found these bad boys. Dairy Milk Hot Choc Chunks. Awww, yeahhh. Basically these are chunks of Dairy Milk chocolate filled with a chocolate fondant center. 

They're all individually wrapped and look quite cute when you open the box and they come tumbling out. 

Delicious gooey innards. I just wish my phone camera could actually pick up on that much awesomeness. I had a sneaky nibble on it and it just tasted like rich gooey chocolate. 

Drop your chunk into your hot milk and do some serious stirring, really, it takes a lot of stirring. And voila! 

Pretty damn good hot chocolate! The fact that you don't get that awful powdery lump at the bottom is great. I think my mug of milk was too big though, because it wasn't as chocolatey as when I had it before. Unfortunately there was no whipped cream or marshmallows in the house or it could have looked a lot prettier. Either way, I'm a fan of these little chunks. :} 

<3

31.10.10 - Halloween & Chinese Food.

May Sum, & Squares, Nottingham. 


For Halloween my friend Leah and I decided to go into Nottingham for a bite to eat and a drink, seeing as we were pretty bored and the TV was seriously lacking in the Halloween movie department. We didn't really have a plan and managed to settle on either Peachy Keens (which used to be Big Wok) or May Sum. Seeing as they're pretty much next to each other we hopped off the bus and had a peek inside both. Peachy Keens was a little busy and seeing as we'd been to May Sum before and liked it we decided to go back there. Kinda wish we'd gone to Peachy Keens now.


We got in the restaurant and stood around for a few minutes waiting for someone to come over and seat us down when a waitress greeted us with the warm words of "It's £10.95." Well hello to you to... We said that was fine and she sat us down. This is the part that irked me, she handed the drinks menu and stood there waiting. Even after Leah asked for a minute or two to choose she just stood there and after 10 seconds said "Yes please? What do you want?". So we ended up picking something random. :|


Then she tells us we have to pay there and then, which is a bit odd so I'm guessing they've had a few people run off without paying. So we pay up and head over to the buffet for some dinner. The buffet itself is pretty impressive, they've got a variety of meaty dishes. The unfortunate thing is, Leah has a meat intolerance and there wasn't really many vegetarian options (she told me to mention this). She made do with the few fishy meals though. 

I swear, I'll get a proper camera soon. :( First round at the buffet! I loaded my plate up with the crispy shredded beef which was amazing, really crispy and not too chewy. The sweet and sour chicken is usually a winner and this was no exception. In the middle is "steamed fish" which I'm guessing is cod with soy sauce, it was really nice and I didn't find any bones, Leah went back for more of it. The salt and pepper prawns were a little bland sadly and the same goes for the breaded crab claw. The smoked salmon was really weird, it didn't taste smoked at all and had a peculiar consistency which I can only describe as already been chewed. There's also some chicken wings hidden in that pile somewhere which I had to get, what with my chicken wing obsession. They were pretty good too. 

Round 2 is always the duck pancakes! I put the duck and spring onion on my plate with the pancakes and hoisin sauce on a separate plate simply to make it easier to assemble. I also got more sweet and sour chicken and some crispy beef. Oh and a couple of prawn crackers. The duck pancakes were great but as soon as I put my fork down between my second one and my third one, the waiter whisked them away while I wasn't looking :( What the hell man. They didn't even look eaten. </3

While we let all that settle before hitting the desserts, Leah and I were trying to figure out what was in our cocktails we'd ordered in a panic. I'd gotten a Skittles and Leah got a Cola Cube, but we had no idea what alcohol was in them so when a guy came over asking if our drinks were okay Leah asked him what alcohol was actually in them. None. So we paid out £4 for a glass of mixed juice. D: Call me cheap but I could have got a REAL cocktail for that price. We chose them from the cocktail list, in-between the usual mojitos and Sex on the Beach drinks, so I was a little annoyed they weren't in the Mocktails section. 

Dessert. The usual buffet selection of pieces of cake, the chocolate fountain (<3), éclairs, marshmallows and...lychees? The lychees confused Leah and she refused to try any, despite me trying to persuade her. I think I filled my plate simply for the purpose of taking a picture of it, because no way could I eat all that lol. The éclairs were okay, your regular "from frozen" ones, alright but nothing amazing. The cake was pretty dry, so I spooned a load of that wonderful melted chocolate onto it and managed to eat half. The tiny vanilla slice was hard to eat, I couldn't cut it in half with my spoon. Trust me, I tried my hardest. I had to physically stop myself from spooning out all that melted chocolate and devouring every last drop. Curse you, calories!


After I slightly fail meal, we took our leave and went off in search of cocktails with actual alcohol in them. I was gutted that Coco Tang was closed, as they do amazing cocktails and Leah hadn't tried them before, but it was Sunday after all. So, we headed on over to Squares and had a couple of their nice, fruity, 2 for £6.50 cocktails. The barman was really nice and gave us extra cherries. :)

<3

29.10.10 - Chiquito. Part II

Chiquito, Redfield Way, Lenton, Nottingham.


Alright, I'm just gonna post what Eddie had, for the sake of posting. 

Chipotle Meatballs - £4.95


Eddie has this thing for meatballs, it's a little creepy. If there's meatballs on the menu for a starter there's an 85% chance he'll get it. This was no exception. The meatballs were gone within minutes. I had to ask him how they were. He said they were medium spicey, not too hot. With a great texture, meaning they weren't overcooked or too chewy. The cornbread was interesting, it looked like a slice of cake...and it kinda tasted like it too. It was light and fluffy (I stole a bit) and a little sweet too so it reminded me of vanilla sponge cake when it wasn't dipped in the tomato and chipotle sauce. 

Enchiladas - £10.15


For his main, Eddie had the Enchiladas with the Spicy Chicken. He was having a little trouble with this, because he doesn't like sour cream, guacamole or chipotle mayo. So, he had to scrape it all off into a pile on the side. After he started tucking in, he was still having trouble eating it due to the fact it fell apart too easily, which we've never had a problem with before. There was too much rice inside them and not enough chicken which made them really filling and a little hard to eat. He said they were nice though, just a pain to eat and too much rice. The Spicy chicken was great, there just wasn't enough of it. 

Mini "Shot" Desserts - £1.79 each, 2 - £3.49, 3 - £4.99, all 5 - £6.99

I managed to convince Eddie to get the mini shots as his dessert as he was too full to have a full dessert, and I really wanted to see them. We decided on one each and share the churros (Yeah, we didn't...) Eddie had the Banoffee Toffee Shot which is on the left. When I asked him how it was he just said "Delicious", It was basically toffee syrup with chunks of nice sweet banana in it, topped with cream and chocolate sprinkles with a biscuit base. He finished it pretty quickly. 

My Double Chocolate Minted Mousse was great, the top half was a dense, rich chocolate mousse with just the right amount of mint to make it not as heavy. The second half was a lighter, bubbly mousse which was just as minty. As full as I was, I managed to eat the whole thing. 

<3