Peaceful Spring Vlog / Baking a carrot cake / Bluebell wood / Art journalling / Painting a bluebell

Описание: Peaceful Spring Vlog / Baking a carrot cake / Bluebell woods / Art journalling / Painting a bluebell /  Art and slow living vlog  / Cosy Spring days / English Countryside


Hi, I hope you're well. In today's video I'm sharing a quiet day at home where I enjoy reading, baking a carrot cake and sharing a meal with my family. I cooked roast lamb in my slow cooker / crock pot , roasted some vegetables, made cauliflower cheese and served everything with some steamed vegetables. If you're interested in how I made this meal, I'll include the details below. On another day we visited Eastham Country Park to see the bluebells in the woods. It was a lovely walk in nature, with the bird singing and squirrels frolicking. We also popped into a cute little cafe near the woods. It was a magical place. Back home I wanted to create something about our day in my art journal. First I thought a simple bluebell painting with watercolours. It quickly turned into another art journalling page and with that a whole spread was complete. I'm very pleased with the end result. For this project I used my trusted W&N watercolour set and brown Faber Castell pen. 
I really hope you enjoy this week's vlog. Let me know your thoughts and where you're watching from. I love reading all your comments. 

Love from,

Müge


Slow Cooked Lamb:

I sometimes use my slow cooker / crock pot for roasting meat. For this I scrunch up some baking paper and put that in the crock pot as a base for my meat. This prevents the meat getting stuck to the pot. As a general rule I throughly rub the meat in a generous amount of olive oil and sprinkle some salt and black pepper over it, also adding some fresh herbs. For the lamb I also used a big spoonful of rose harissa paste and rubbed that onto the meat after the olive oil. I then scored the meat with a sharp knife and put a whole garlic clove in each slit. I used 3-4 cloves in total. Finally I put a sprig of rosemary, some fresh thyme and fresh sage. You don't need any liquid when you're roasting in the slow cooker. The meat releases its juice and cooks in it nicely. After 4-5 hours the meat is tender and it's ready to serve.

I also roasted some butternut squash (I might have said pumpkin in the video, I just love pumpkins too much 😄, apologies) and potatoes. I roughly chopped the butternut squash, leaving the skin on and generously drizzled with olive oil. I roasted it in the oven for 40-45 minutes. Meanwhile I put lots if oil in another tray and heat that in the oven until really hot. I par-boiled the potatoes for 5 minutes then carefully put the potatoes in the tray with the hot oil and back into the oven for about 40 to 45 minutes to cook at 200 degrees Celcius. 

I also made cauliflower cheese and I've been using the same recipe for years. It's from the book called 'The Home Cook Book' by Monty and Sarah Don, page 337. I have shared this book on my channel before, not gifted nor sponsored just to be transparent.


Carrot Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 
1/2 cup light brown sugar (I used coconut sugar this time)
1 cup oil (vegetable, sunflower or olive oil)
4 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 cup crushed pineapple (this ingredient makes the cake extra moist) 
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups finely grated carrots
1 cup of walnuts; almonds or hazelnuts would be fine too. (optional) 

Cream Cheese Frosting

250 gr soft cream cheese
1/2 cup butter softened
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup of icing sugar 

Method:

Mix wet ingredients in a large bowl.
Whisk dry ingredients separately. 
Combine wet and dry ingredients. 
Fold in carrots and nuts.
Pour into 2 greased lined pans.
Bake in pre-warmed oven at 170 degrees Celcius for 20 to 30 mins. Do a skewer test before taking it out of the oven.

Cool completely before frosting.

Frosting:
Beat frosting ingredients together until fluffy and smooth. Apply the frosting in between two layers and on top of the cake.

Enjoy!


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Music: Epidemic Sound

#slowliving #englishcountryside #art #artjournalling #artoftheday #watercolourpainting #watercolor #aquarelle