My birthday tea

Holla friendships! I'm turning thirty-two on Tuesday but I celebrated with my besties and family yesterday at Churchills. I was soooo excited to photograph everything and everyone and then my worst nightmare came true - my camera card malfunctioned!!!! In the chaos of prepping party paraphernalia, I forgot to pack my back-up gear. Le sigh. But I still managed to grab a couple of snaps of the table (although I wanted to snap every detail!) My mom baked the killer cake, Madame Macaron whipped up the glittery macarons and Churchills served the most delicious tea and treats. We had so much fun tucking into everything while crazy French music played in the background! Thank you to everyone who came and made my day so amazing. It was lovely to be surrounded by all my special peeps. Pics of me larking about with the balloons are coming up later this week! x

Conversations with Tall One

La: Are you making rice with the curry this evening?

Jon: Nah.

La: So are we just gonna have curry with curry?

Jon: I'm making cauliflower rice.

At this point, I proceeded to leap five feet into the air.

La: WHAAAAAAAATTTT!!!?? You are JOKING. JOKING, PANDA. I saw cauliflower rice on instagram the other day and I screenshotted a pic for you. I've been meaning to show you. OMG, I can't believe you're making that. How do you make it? I have been wanting to try that. It's much healthier!! 

Jon: Sweet.

FYI: It tasted AMAZING.

FYI: I can't believe I have a boy to cook me healthy versions of my fave meals when I'm stressed and working late. (I looked a little like this)

And thanks to him, I didn't eat this:

(That's for Friday night) 

x

The last office cuppies

I was treated to such an epic send-off at work the other day. Flowers, balloons, prezzies, special collages and a surprise lunch complete with tequila shots. Aaaaaaaaaaaand....cupcakes! My, have we eaten a lot of cupcakes in that office. I am gonna miss our communal feasts! Thank you to my amazing team who spoilt me so much. I am beyond blessed to have worked with you cats. x

Sunday Brek

Made eggs and soldiers on Sunday for brekkie! Had to snap my egg-cup holders again because I love these guys. Also, there was way more toast than pictured below.  One does not simply have two soldiers with their dippy eggs. 

PS: If you hover over my pics, you'll see there's a pink button to making pinning much easier, 

if you so wish to pin these guys!

Cuppies

Yummy, scrummy cupcakes - still the way to this blogger's heart. I am tucked up at home, editing a shoot I did today. Hope you lovely ladies have had a great Women's Day? Jenna and I were treated to these by a work pal yesterday and we MAPPED them. Thank you Jackson!

Market Day!

I got Nikki's household up at the crack of dawn so that we could head to the market. Everyone despised me I'm sure as the girls had been jolling till 4am. I however, had tucked myself into bed just after midnight like a good little Panda. Once we arrived, little Hunter skipped from stall to stall, finding me things to shoot! Is there anything better than big buckets of country flowers? Yes. There is. My year was pretty much made when I got to hold and snuggle a baby goat! After the market, we drove around Hillcrest in search of cows and ponies. I do have some snaps of us which I'll get around to editing soon. PS: It is the day of Fathers here in SA. Have a good one dad. See you later.

Pizza Party!

Pizza + Caramel Vodka = Crazy Eyes! 

This nice person (you may remember his face from a few millions of snow pics I posted last year) came round the other day and taught me how to cook pizza. I'm not really one for turning down pizza cooked by boys in Third Eye Blind shirts. Especially if they're not fussed about me accidentally dropping at least 20% of the ingredients on the floor. 

Seeing as it's a Friday, you should throw your own pizza party! Get your paws on the following things and blow your housemate/boyf/mom/overly familiar neighbour away with this epic dish of cheesy goodness. If you are vaguely domesticated, you will probably have most of these things. I had to buy the baking stuff because, well, a charming family of weevils had moved into my giant box of baking goods. Mmmm, weevils. I know you're hankering for pizza now.

Right, so you will need...

Vodka, Wine, Savannas
2 cups plain flour
1 x 8 g sachet of dry yeast - You may think to yourself, "Heck, let's live dangerously and go for 10 grams." No friend, you will make a pizza cake - which isn't an entirely bad idea.
1 teaspoon caster sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
¾ cup warm water - gonna be tricky finding this one but persevere.
Plus TOPPINGS!

Before you begin cooking, it is imperative that you drink at least one Savanna (full strength) and mapp two shots of caramel voddies. If you don't do this, you can seriously alter the molecular structure of the pizza dough. Ok, let's continue.




Combine dry ingredients in large mixing bowl and add oil and water. Or as we concluded - combine erm, everything.
Mix to a soft dough.
Knead on a floured surface until soft and pliable. I read that as "Cover your entire kitchen in flour and then knead like those bakers on BBC Food." I regretted this epic flouring later when I realised I had managed to layer an impressive paste over everything. Best to keep it tidy and stick to a light dusting.

Return to the mixing bowl and cover with cling wrap and leave in a warm spot for 30 minutes. For some reason, everything in this recipe was CRACKING me up the other night, but yes, leave it in a warm spot.
The dough should double in size - it does. It's epic.
When it has risen, 'punch' the dough once to remove air bubbles. I'm not sure what I was doing at this point? Chopping a pineapple I think. Ask a cute boy to do the punching for you.
Remove from bowl and knead gently for 1 minute.
Roll the dough out to desired size and add favourite toppings.

Bung it in the oven until it looks done!

We added tomato paste, mozzarella, chillis, peppers, pineapple, mushrooms, ham and.... it was delish! Especially the next morning when I chucked a fried egg on the leftovers - which horrified my colleagues but made perfect sense to me! Enjoy! x

Cake!

I saw this most epic cake on Saturday. That is all. x

Roses and Raspberries

Some pretty things keeping me company at the office.
But I shared those croissants :)