Notice

Just a quick note to keep you updated - English Girl is no longer in BC, I graduated in May and moved back to the UK and therefore I felt that I should move on from this blog as well. I won't delete it, this is a great (if a little patchy) memento of my time at college, however I won't be updating anymore. I'm very grateful to everyone who visited my blog, I hope you enjoyed it!
This isn't the end of my blogging attempts, however. I have made a fresh start somewhere else! If you feel like checking out my new project, you can find me at jumakesandbakes.wordpress.com.
 I hope to see you there xxx

Even more music!

Another quick little Bat For Lashes and Bellowhead update - both have tracks streaming on the Guardian website. I've been listening to them almost non-stop for the past couple of days!

Bat For Lashes is here

Bellowhead is here

A Quick Recommendation

Just a quick post to bring your attention to a bit of lovely music! My favourite radio station, BBC 6Music, have been having a week of live sessions at Maida Vale. Today they had one of my absolute favourite artists, Bat For Lashes, performing. To my immense pleasure, I have just discovered that as well as the audio session on the Lauren Laverne show, (which I listen to on the iPlayer very often) there is also a programme that was shown on the red button on TV. The big news is, that programme is available to watch outside of the UK for once!
The programme can be found here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00z9tp2, and I thoroughly recommend watching it! There are other sessions available from earlier in the week too, and more coming up - I'm particularly looking forward to Primal Scream on Friday!

UPDATE
I've found another nice bit of music  - performances from Bestival can be watched here http://www.beatclash.com/bestival/ from many bands, including a set from one of my favourites, Bellowhead!

University Life

Just wanted to show you that I do actually do work and go to class, I'm not always procrastinating!
My favourite class this year, and of my whole university experience (yes I know this only 3 weeks in) is Ornithology. I was worried for a while that I wouldn't get on the course, which, as anyone who knows me can guess, was rather stressful. You see, I love birds. Birds are my "thing". The subject I can bore my friends to death with. So, any class where I get to do this:

is a total winner as far as I'm concerned! This was taken in my lab this week, when we went to the botanic gardens where someone was banding as part of a research project. We took advantage of her mist nets and got to handle some birds! That one in the picture is a black-capped chickadee. The labs alternate between indoor sessions that use the museum specimens to help us learn the different taxa, and trips to spots close to campus for birdwatching. Perfect.

Ginger Cake

You know how whenever they interview chefs they ask them about their guilty pleasures? You know, the processed or pre-prepared foods they aren't supposed to like, but secretly love? Things like ketchup or baked beans. Well, if you were to ask me that question, there would be far too many to mention, but near the top of the list would definitely be Jamaica ginger cake and Bird's custard.

food of the gods

It ain't classy, but then neither am I! Unfortunately I have never seen it here. I expect you could buy it in a special shop for some extortionate price, but that isn't my style. So you can imagine I was intrigued when I came across this recipe that claimed to turn out like the packaged version. It is also vegan, if that matters to you.

So, I made it! I made it without a food processor, because we don't have one, and just mixed it with a wooden spoon. Even so, it took no time at all to throw together. The batter was a very strange texture, thanks mostly to the lack of eggs and the hot water, I think. I ended up cooking it for longer than the recipe said because I made it in a loaf tin.

Never mind that though, how did it taste? Really good. It tastes just like a ginger cake should - moist, dense, caramelly and warming - but with the (delicious) addition of a chewy, crispy crust.  I had it warm (with custard of course) last night and cold today, and I think it improves with age.

 In less than 24 hours, the 3 of us have managed to eat over half of it. I think this is a good sign!

Here's the recipe again: Easy Peasy Ginger Cake

New Year, Old Habits

 Here's a hint about one of the places I went this summer. 

Also, a fairly accurate portrait of my energy levels at the moment!

Well, hello! I'm back! Has it really been 9 months since I last posted? The last school year was very tough, and basically left me emotionally incapacitated for most of the summer. I'm feeling better now, any way, and I am back in Canada for my final year of University! I'm two weeks in, and procrastination is starting to rear it's ugly head, so I thought I'd start blogging again. Also a couple of people have mentioned my blog in the past few weeks, which was a nice reminder that people do actually read it!

Suppose I'd better get a picture of some food in here somehow!

Jerk-style and souvlaki-style chicken on the barbie.

At the moment I'm enjoying my courses, and have been getting up to some fun, sometimes food-related things outside of school. I've moved into a new flat with two friends, close to campus so I have a bit more free time, and with a bigger kitchen! I'm still trying to improve my cooking, so will be trying some new things, though I might post a few of my own recipes.
If all goes well and I get enough homework done, I'll be doing some baking later on today so stay tuned for a food post!

I hope all of you are well, and I'll be speaking to you soon!

Merry Christmas!

I'm home at last! I got home on Wednesday and after an exhausting day in London (complete with aftenoon tea!) we decorated the tree last night. Now I am officially ready for Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone, and I will see you in the new year!

Song of the Week

It's exam time again! My first exam isn't until Friday, but then I have an evil cluster of them, so that will be fun.
This week it is the return of my favourite creepy carol, in a slightly different form. Castleton Carol, by Kerfuffle. It's a renaissance carol, also known as Down in Yon Forest. Variants have been collected a few times, most notably by Vaughan Williams, as the title suggests in Castleton, Derbyshire.

Song of the Week

School is starting to get busy once again. I had a bit of a rest for a bit, but now everything is hotting up again and I'm going to have to start revising for finals. The last day of the semester is this time next week, I can't believe it! Everything is going so fast! I also can't believe that it is the first Sunday of advent this weekend - where has the time gone?
My first final is in Statistics, and fittingly I have gone for a song called Mathematics by Cherry Ghost
Cherry Ghost have been around for a while now. I got to see them at Truck festival in the summer and I was surprised by how many of their songs I had heard before. Anyway, this is probably my favourite of theirs.

Song of the Week

Dad and I had a really great time in Washington and Oregon at the weekend, despite the rain, wind and snow!
This week's song is "How Come You Never Go There" by Feist, from her new album Metals. I bought the album last week and this is probably my favourite song from it :)

Song of the Week

Midterms are finally over for me! I am very happy, even if the last one went awfully. Tomorrow evening I will be flying down to Seattle and meeting my Dad. We are going to travel around Washington for the weekend, I can't wait. For this week's song I have gone for a band from Seattle - Fleet Foxes. The song is "Drops in River" from their EP Sun Giant

Song of the Week

Bit late this week, but here it is:
I bought the new album Ceremonials by Florence and the Machine and I am really liking it. Her sound is definitely evolving, and I am enjoying the way it is headed!
This week's song is "Seven Devils"

Song of the Week

So, I have a midterm on Thursday, but instead of revising yesterday, I may or may not have watched all of the episodes of Misfits so far in about 12 hours. Oops. I honestly didn't mean to, but it turned out to be so good, and my desire to study was so small that I couldn't stop. I don't really know why I didn't catch on to it sooner, I've heard so many people raving about it. I guess I was scared that it would be really violent - I tried to watch the first episode once and had to stop because I was so scared that something gross was going to happen!

Anyway, after my Misfits binge, I bought the soundtrack from iTunes and I've picked one of the songs from that to be my song of the week. (Minor spoilers ahead) It plays in a fairly pivotal scene between Alisha and the man in the mask (who incidentally have got to be the most attractive couple on television) and I can't get enough of it.
The song is "Paradise Circus" by Massive Attack, from their 2010 album Heligoland

Treacle Tart Debacle

So last week, when I said I was about to make treacle tart? I was lying. Well, that's not to say I didn't try, but apparently the universe just didn't want me to do it.
For one thing it turned out that I didn't have enough golden syrup, but that didn't really matter because I only found that out after this had happened:

Yes, that is meant to be the pastry case. I'm not sure what happened, I followed the recipe exactly. I think it was a combination of my scales not being very accurate and trying to use canadian ingredients to follow a british recipe. But never mind. A couple of days later, I went and bought more golden syrup, and, I have to admit, a pre-made pastry case *guilty face*. I made the tart on Friday and it turned out very well

I used the recipe from the Peyton and Byrne cookbook my sister got me for my birthday. The filling was delicious, though I used bread crumbs instead of cake crumbs, and there was a bit too much to fit inside the pastry case.

Song of the Week

Hi there! Another busy week, full of quizzes and lab reports. Two midterms next week too - yay!
Sometimes I get a bit fed up of how big my university is. In some ways it is great because there is a huge variety of people, and it means that we get some really awesome facilities. However, on the other hand it does just make one feel completely anonymous sometimes. I've had over 25 professors in the past two and a half years, but a maximum of 3 have ever actually learnt my name, some of the classes are so huge. It was quite a big shock in first year. I came straight from my sixth form, where the biggest of my A-level classes contained only 17 people, and where almost all of the teachers in my school knew who I was, sometimes even though I had never been taught by them.
Thank goodness, then, for my swedish class. Our class only has about 30 people, and our professor learnt all of our names within a week. Learning a language makes it easy to get to know people in the class because we are all struggling through conversations in swedish together.
Every Friday, we finish the class by singing a song in swedish. Last Friday we sang this song, and I really liked it so I have decided to make it my song of the week.

Satan i Gatan by Veronica Maggio
(if you don't speak swedish, there is a helpful translation of the lyrics here)

Song of the Week

Happy thanksgiving! We are having a rather non-traditional dinner today - Turkey chili and treacle tart! We did make up for it by having the proper thanksgiving meal upstairs with our landlords and their friends last night - my first proper thanksgiving - which was lovely.
I'll tell you all about today's dinner soon, but in the mean time, here is the song of the week for this week!
This week's song is "Cat in the Hallway" by Tiny Ruins, from her debut album Some Were Meant For Sea. I bought her album after hearing "Old as the Hills" on the radio a few weeks ago, and I am besotted with it.
Tiny Ruins, aka Hollie Fullbrook is a musician and songwriter from Aukland, New Zealand.
I've heard that Hollie was recently involved in a motorcycle accident in Zanzibar and has had to cancel her tour dates, so here's wishing her a speedy and complete recovery :)

Song of the Week

Well, my computer is finally fixed, and just in time too, since I have a lot of work to do on it at the moment!
For this week, I have chosen a song which I must have listened to on average at least three times a week since I first heard it.  As well as being amazing to just sit down and listen to, it is perfect for playing when doing homework or trying to go to sleep. It is chilled and relaxing, but with an interesting complexity that you can tune into if you so choose.
The song is "Child Song", by The Cinematic Orchestra, from their 2007 album Ma Fleur. If you like this at all, I urge you to seek out some more of their music, they really are great. You'll probably have heard at least one song before.

Song of the Week

I am having quite a lot of problems with my computer at the moment, and I am taking it to the repair place tomorrow, for the second time in two weeks. Since I don't know when I'm going to get it back, I thought I would post the song of the week today, then I will be back with a new recipe when my computer is (hopefully) fixed!

This week's song of the week is "Bubble" by King Creosote and Jon Hopkins. I bought their album, Diamond Mine back at the beginning of June and I haven't stopped listening to it since.  It is just stunning. They were nominated for the Mercury Music Prize this year, but were pipped to the post by PJ Harvey.

Take a listen, and enjoy the beautiful video :)

Lorra Lolly Lentils

It's starting to feel a little autumnal here in Vancouver, and by that I mean it's raining. Standing at the bus stop in the rain is not a particularly heartening experience, so I like to have something warm, tasty and filling waiting for me at home. Today's recipe fits that description perfectly.
The dish I went for was Tarka Dal, following Anjum Anand's recipe. We have Anjum's book I Love Curry back home, and the dishes in that were delicious, so I had high hopes. I was not disappointed. This dal is warming, moreish and as a bonus, healthy! I served it with this zucchini rice, minus the cheese!
You can find the recipe here.

In other news, do you know how hard it is to make daal look nice when it's dark and you just want to devour it?

I'm Back! ...Sort of...

So, I'm back at school. Third year, I can't quite believe it! I'm all settled in to a new flat, have five new courses to wrap my head around (including Swedish - hej alla!), and hopefully I am ready to get back into the swing of blogging!
There are going to be some changes around here for now, since I have yet to figure out just how to balance my workload. For one, I am going to go from Artist of the Week to Song of the Week. There are a few reasons for this, but one big one is that I'm worried that I will run out of artists of whom I own an extensive back catalogue! Secondly, I have decided that this semester is going to be about improving my cooking skills, and that means following other people's recipes. I will still do my own recipes occasionally, but more often than not, I will be showing you my results from using other people's recipes.
I hope to have something new up soon, but in the mean time here are a couple of the cooking adventures I've had since I last saw you:

Cooking *live* shrimp

moments later, one jumped across the room.

Cocktails with The Hungry Undergrad!