Last year during summer we were sitting at a bar on a beach and  my brother posted this picture of us on Facebook with the tag ” sitting on the beach, drinking Jack and coke”

His picture sparked some interesting comments from his friends. One of them even quoted Bible verses. The reality of the situation wasn’t that we are a bunch of drunks who only value partying but rather that I haven’t seen my brother for almost half a year despite living in the same country. In addition we only get 5 days vacation  in Summer ,which includes the weekend, generally we work long hours and don’t even have Fridays as part of our weekends. Having Jack in Coke is considered a luxury here in Korea since the alcohol is imported an generally fetches the ‘lovely’ price of $8. We managed to get a little restaurant in the street where our apartment was that sold the drink for really cheap.

For us it was a special moment because we were enjoying a relaxing weekend with the people we love most, while other people would rather quickly jump to conclusions and judge others as vain or say that they don’t value the small things in life. This whole experience was about family and not the beach nor the booze. We did enjoy ourselves, yes, but no one knows how hard we have to work and save to be able to do these things, and although they only see the good times, people don’t really post about the bad times, when you’re all alone in a foreign country, or how hard they have to work to have an enjoyable time when they finally get a break.

Happy New year!!! I’m sure by now everyone has made some new years resolutions and you have already been working towards them. One of my resolutions is to follow a healthier lifestyle, therefore these Cinnamon buns/rolls was my last refined sugar fuelled breakfast… for a few weeks at least 😀

Some of my other resolutions this year is to plan ahead. Too often I just jump into things without planning, especially when it comes to events or trips. This leaves me either spending all my money in one weekend or realising that what I want to do is too expensive and then I end up not doing it or not buying something I really want. For example a few months ago I saw a gorgeous Armani bomber jacket for $570, I reckoned that if I save $100 every month I’ll be able to buy it before the end of winter…. so guess what???… after 3 months I still don’t have the money nor the jacket and I can’t even tell you what I did with my money, that’s the worst of it 😦

I thinks those are the two main resolutions in addition I have some plans for my blog, I’ve been doing a lot of food posts over the last month and they’ve been doing exceptionally well, so I want to keep doing that, but I also want to share other aspects of my life with you, including my fashion style, some party DIY stuff and home improvements. I hope you will bare with me through the next chapter of my blog. 😀

Giant Cinnamon Rolls

I followed this amazing recipe from Sally’s baking addiction if you want to have a look at what she did there. These Giant cinnamon rolls are easily the best rolls I’ve ever had. The dough is kind of sour yet it melts in your mouth. Baked rolls can also be frozen and heated in the microwave for about 2 minutes for an easy breakfast.

INGREDIENTS

DOUGH

• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2/3 cup  granulated sugar
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons  active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup  unsalted butter,  room temperature and cut into 4 pieces
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour , plus more for dusting/rolling

FILLING

• 6 Tablespoons (90g) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup  granulated sugar
• 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon

CREAM CHEESE ICING

•  1/4 cup or 56g full-fat cream cheese, room temperature
• 2 Tablespoons  unsalted butter,  room temperature
• 1 and 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Making the dough

(you can use a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment. I did everything manually)

In a sauce pan heat the buttermilk on a low heat, until it starts to break apart then remove from the heat. Pour it into a mixing bowl and manually add the sugar and yeast. Cover and let it rest for 5 minutes until the yeast is foamy. Next add the eggs one at a time and add the salt. Then add the butter. The butter will remain in pieces as it doesn’t mix very well. Mix for about 5 minutes, then turn the dough out on a floured surface and knead with your hands for about 1 minute.

After kneading you can form the dough into a ball and put it in a creased bowl to rise double in size. Remember to cover you dough with a towel or some plastic wrap to keep it from drying out. Since its really cold here and my dough never rise, I took Sally’s advice and turned on my oven for 10 minutes, when the timer ran out I placed the dough in the warm oven for 2 hours. I had to follow this step again after 1 hour, so I took the dough out of the oven, heated it for 10 minutes which after I placed the dough back in the oven for another hour.

Since my oven is really small I greased two 6×8 inch baking dishes. I then rolled out the dough in a 10×16 inch rectangle.

Making the filling. I melted the butter and  covered the dough with the melted butter making sure to cover it evenly. Then I mixed the sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkled it on top of the melted butter until the dough was covered in cinnamon sugar. I then rolled it into a log and cut the log into 8 pieces. I then  placed the rolls in the 2 dishes and covered it with plastic ,then allowed the dough to rise for about 2 hours using the same method with the oven, as above.

After the dough doubled in size, I took them out of the oven. Then I preheated the oven to 375°F (191°C) while I removed the plastic from the baking dish. I baked the rolls for 25 minutes, around 15 minutes I placed a piece of foil on top of the rolls so they wouldn’t burn on top.

I took them out of the oven and prepared the icing by creaming the butter and cream cheese together, and adding the confectioners sugar and vanilla extract. Using a spoon I spread the icing over the warm rolls so that it can melt into the cinnamon roll.

 

 

 

Hi everyone!! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Our Christmas weekend started off with lots of cookies and treats. The students at our school loved the cookies we gave them and some of them even thanked me on Monday when we returned to school. Unfortunately alot of students didn’t come to school on Friday so we had a lot of cookies left. I tried giving them away to our colleagues but they didn’t want to take more than 8 packets of cookies so…. we were left with about 20 cookies, which we ate on Friday night.

In addition, we’ve decided to stay at our current school for another year. We’re also going home for a month and over the last few weeks we’ve been trying to find teachers to work in our place. It’s been a real mission as most of the schools in the area have winter camps around the same time that we are going away. I’m really exited to get away. Its summer in South Africa and I can’t wait to get a bit of sun.

I would also like to thank all you guys for following me on this blog and allowing me to share my life with you. I will not be blogging until after the new year as so many people are on holiday at the moment. To all of you Happy New year and I’ll see you again soon 🙂

Over the holidays we always overdo it with the food. No matter how well you follow your eating plan during the rest of the year, we always find a way to throw that out of the window during Christmas season.

I’ve been reading a lot of comments on fitness websites and it seems that a lot of people are afraid that all their hard work will go down the drain. I’ve read somewhere before that you can gain about 500 gram over 3 days but the Dailymail found that people can gain an average of 2.20 lbs (1 kg) over the holiday period but this depended whether or not your BMI was within the normal range.

I’m no expert but I usually try to stick to my eating plan throughout the season and only splurge on Christmas day and maybe one or two days after. This doesn’t always work but if you stay active, like going for a walk after lunch, it will help at burning some of the extra calories and your weight gain may not be so much.

Since I don’t go to gym during Christmas I do try and make some time for some kind of movement, other than reaching for one more piece of chicken 😛

Here are some of my favourite 10 minute exercises that are easy enough that you can do it inside your bedroom before breakfast.

You don’t really need a jump rope, you can use an invisible (make believe) jump rope.

I like this one because of the variety and you can put a list of your favourite plyo exercises in there 🙂 What is your favourite holiday routine?