Tasty Friday!

Yes, I know it's not Thursday, but I couldn't wait until next week to share this recipe with you. I'm not sure what the weather is like where you are, but it's really sunny here, and this is the perfect recipe for this sort of weather!

Strawberry Shortcake (from Sorted Recipes - also has a video tutorial on making it!)

You will need:

• 225g unsalted butter
  
• 100g caster sugar
• drop of vanilla essence
  
• 225g self-raising flour or 225g plain flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt
• 150g white chocolate (chocolate chips are easiest)
• 300ml double or whipping cream
• 2/3 large punnet of strawberries
  
• spoonful of icing sugar to serve

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 150oC
2. Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla essence in a bowl until smooth, light and fluffy
   
3. Sieve in the flour and stir it in to form a dough
4. Chop up the chocolate (if using a bar of chocolate) and mix it into the dough
5. Push the dough into a round cake tin so it's around 2cm thick
6. Bake for 20-25 mins depending on your oven until cooked through. It shouldn't be too dark-coloured and will look quite soft, but will harden up as it cools.
7. Leave it in the tin to cool and harden up a bit before you try getting it out of the tin (we were a bit impatient, so ours broke a little down the centre!)
8. Whip the cream (either by hand or with an electric whisk) until it forms stiff peaks and spread in over the cooled shortcake base
9. Slice the strawberries and place on top of the cream
10. Dust with icing sugar
    

We had a bit of a disaster getting ours into the fridge at uni, and unfortunately it crumbled into a big mess! It still tastes amazing though and is a really great way to enjoy the summer strawberries!

Before it broke!

Thought for the day

I'm sorry but I don't really have time for a proper blog post today - I'm currently swamped with revision for my exam on Friday. I have a meeting tonight about the officer position at the student union, so hopefully I'll have something positive to report back from that!

I saw this today, so thought I'd post it - it certainly made me smile!

10 reasons why being disabled is cool

I've been feeling a bit down this week, back at uni after an amazing Easter break has been a downer really. I just feel so alone here, I feel as if I'm balancing on a tightrope trying to keep my emotions in check and not break down into tears - I've been really close a few times and I've only been back 4 days. I'm so close to just packing it all in, but I don't know what I'd do if I wasn't here, and I need a degree to do all the jobs I want to do :( so it's a bit of a catch 22 situation. I'm just taking it one day at a time at the moment, I have a lot of deadlines coming up, so that's keeping me occupied for the moment...just trying to keep busy I guess!

In trying to cheer myself up, I thought I'd compile a bit of a light-hearted list on why being disabled (specifically my disability and how it affects me, though obviously there's overlap with other disabilities/conditions) is cool* (or you might just think I'm a bit of a freak!). So without further ado, being disabled is cool because:

1. ...you feel like a celebrity because you get stared at so much.
2. ...your shoulder dislocates spontaneously whilst in a conversation with a friend, and, without flinching or stopping the conversation, you pop it back in with one swift motion whilst said friend looks on in horror/disgust.
3. ...you have an encyclopaedic knowledge of pain relief, and your friends ask you to advise them on the best painkiller to take by describing their pain to you.
4.  ...you have enough pain relief in your medicine cupboard to sedate an elephant (according to my dad, anyway!)
5. ...despite never being able to walk, you've sprained your ankles 6 times...twice which you're not sure how it happened.
6. ...your emergency pain relief kit consists of paracetamol, ibuprofen, codeine and chocolate buttons.
7. ...like your friends, you sometimes wake up with random injuries you're not sure how they happened...unlike your friends, you were not drinking the night before and went to bed as normal.
8. ...your best friend plays 'guess where Catherine's internal organs are because of her scoliosis'
9. ...and you join in.
10. ...you can never decide whether you're hot or cold because each part of your body is a different temperature, ranging from boiling hot to ice cold.

*Disclaimer: I hope my readers see the intention in which this was written in is just meant to be a bit of lighthearted humourous fun. In no way do I want to make fun of any disabilities or symptoms, as I know from personal experience how debilitating they are and how hurtful it can be to be mocked.

Katy Perry!!

I got home yesterday afternoon from a great weekend away which really lifted my spirits. I went down to Birmingham on Saturday with my dad to spend a bit of time with my friend and carer from uni, and her mum and dad. We'd (me, my friend and her mum) booked to see Katy Perry about six months ago for the Monday night, but since I'm at home for Easter we decided to make a bit of a weekend of it. And it was lovely! Pretty chilled, but it was really nice to spend time away from the pressure of uni workload and carer issues and have a laugh with people I really care about.