Chocolate & Cinnamon Apple Slice

I wanted to make something along the lines of this, but I couldn't find a recipe that was quite right. So, I combined a few and made my own. 

Ingredients:
125g butter softened
¾ cup plain flour

½ cup sugar

3 apples finely sliced

2 tbs cinnamon

1 ½ cups of cooking chocolate

Method:

Preheat oven to 190c.

Whisk butter and sugar first, then add in flour. Line the bottom of a tin/dish with baking paper. Put in the center of an oven for 15 min ,then set aside.

Peel and finely slice the apples, and boil with 2tbs of cinammon in 1 cup of hot water for 5 minutes. Remove and drain the excess liquid, Add 2 tbs sugar and 1 tbs flour. Spread evenly over the precooked base then put back into the oven for 15 more mins.

Melt the cooking chocolate, then spread evenly over apple and biscuit base then allow to cool. Refrigerate for 2+hrs.

Recently

So I've just put in my University application, in which I hope to defer until 2016 while I work and save up money. All very exciting!

My family have just left Australia after visiting for a week and I could not believe how different I was to them. Their accents we're so heavy and in a sense 'ugly' compared to the Australian accent, which I think I've copped a bit of. it makes me wonder, "did I really talk like that?" and "did I really act like that?" which I supposedly did. All in all it was fun, we went to both the Dandenong Markets and the Caribbean markets, into the city and the Melbourne Zoo, to Fountaingate and a few other little places along the way.

Juice

My mum posted an old video on Facebook a few night ago of me and my sisters. My youngest sister still a baby, and the other shoving a bottle in the camera sporting a new haircut I had given her because apparently she couldn’t see through the curls, and me sitting grumpy faced doing god knows what on the bed. I didn’t even know these videos existed anymore. But it reminded me of when I use to sit outside, on the uneven concrete by the sliding door of the ‘kids room’ (essentially a room we were allowed to mess up) and make grapefruit juice from the old tree that Henry Hartnell planted when /or before I was a baby. Now, making grapefruit juice consisted of some very difficult steps, so I’ll walk you through.

Step 1: To Climb the tree.
This was probably the most fun step. The tree was kind of old, and the branches had plenty of bounce in them so when we got to the highest points with our plastic bag we started to worry a bit. (This tree had been through a lot. We use to hammer nails into it to make treehouses, and drag mums pillows and blankets outside to make beds in the tree. ) But yeah, we basically got a shitload of grapefruit.

Step 2: Cutting them up
Mum and Dad didn’t seem to care/ or notice that we we’re using all their good knives to cut grapefruit in half using concrete as a chopping board.

Step 3: Squeezing the juice out:
This step was probably the messiest, and stickiest. We didn't get much juice from the amount of grapefruit we picked, but we always managed to get at least a jug. When we were left with nothing but scraps the pigs would have a field day, followed by a long and smelly dose of diarrhea, which Dad would kill us for. (I think one year the pig we killed actually had a slight grapefruit taste)

Step 5: SUGAR
Yep, since we were kids, we liked things sweet so it was only natural that we add a little sugar…. But a little was never enough so we used ½ to a whole cup of sugar each time. Bad.... I know. When our panel of grapefruit juice testers we satisfied with the taste we would pour a glass and take it out to Dad who was usually building something in the shed, or sitting down having a beer, and his eyes would squint and his lip would curl as he pretended he liked it, and we ran off to get him more.

2014

1 January 2014

Being it the first day of 2014 I feel obliged to write a new blog post! :D The year has really flown by and what a good year it was... To be honest, I can't think of what things I've gotten up so I'm gonna have a sift through my Facebook timeline... Throughout the year I've traveled, battled family problems, I've made friends and lost friends,had great times and had plenty of new experiences and according to lots of people... I'VE CHANGED A HELL OF A LOT!

Here are my most vivid memories of each month of 2013: 

January:  Finding out my exam results from the previous year!

February: Mum's birthday! & Fun at school

March: The loss of a close friend. And also the Harlem shake!

April: My sisters birthday, Camping with my friends, and getting my new guitar!

May: My Illuminati Phase.

June: Biggest party I've ever been to, and my farewell party!

July: My new school! New family! And new country! AUSTRALIA!!! :D

August: Went to the zoo, did lots of art and watched a lot of anime! Also my dad's birthday.

September: Visited art galleries.

October: Felt the Australian heat for the first time! Halloween, And my art exhibition|

November: Met Masato Takasaka, and studied hard for exams! >:D

December: My first birthday & Christmas away from home! & Blue hair





Hopefully 2014 will be even better than the last!
-Ashleigh.

In Memory of Sylvia

29 November 2013

I’ve lived next to a woman names Sylvia, since mum and dad first brought me back from the hospital in 1996. She was a creative lady, who had tendencies to hoard a lot of useless shit. Seriously, as soon as you step into her house you’re swallowed by mountains of junk she’s collected over the years.  Ever since I was a kid I would go over there and learn how to make homemade cards. When I was about 8 she inspired me to make a mini card making business. It used to be so fun for me, and I even had an ad in the Waiotira primary School newsletter promoting handmade cards. All the locals would give me a few dollars, and I’d sit away in a little area I sat up in the corner of my room. Sylvia was like a grandma for me. She’d never forget to give me and my sisters a little birthday and Christmas present; we’d run up to the fence and she’d be standing there with a cheeky grin while she hands us our prezzies before we smuggle them back inside.  She was a really close family friend, and knew basically everyone under the McCullough name. One thing I use to hate was collecting her pig scraps! Sometimes Dad and I would get a bit lazy, and leave them for a week or so before she eventually rung up and complained about them still sitting there.  She was also a keen baker, the problem was… she couldn’t manage to eat it all herself being the little old lady she was, so we’d get calls to come and get some home baking. Sounds pretty good huh? Well, not really. Danielle and I have to do a thorough check of the food for hair before we even think about taking a bite. (She was a notorious hair-in-baking criminal) Sylvia always liked a good yarn, to the point we avoided going over there because she’d talk our heads off until you can think of a legitimate excuse to get away…and then there were her dogs that would bark if you came near the fence. They were cute little things, Chicki – who was a beautiful blonde Chihuahua and Bella, I think her name was, who was a chubby little jack Russel. I wonder who’s looking after her dogs now. (Probably her daughter, who barely had the time to visit her)

It was only a few weeks ago, when Danielle messaged me saying “Oh, did anyone tell you about Sylvie?” Initially I thought she’d bought something off one of those stupid TV advertisements again (She always does and I’m usually helping her put them together). But Danielle told me she has Cancer, and will only live another 6 months. That night I wrote a letter and postcard, but never got around to sending it. Last night mum messaged me and said ‘Todays is Sylvie’s day, she passed away this morning.” I was so shocked because, it was only a matter of weeks… not months! The last time I saw her was when I said goodbye before I came to Australia. She said she was really proud of me, and mum and dad would be too. She always liked my art…and I think she secretly thought I’d get known for it. She will be missed so much, by everyone, especially Chicki and Bella. 

Opal necklace Sylvia gave me

A bit of everything!

Monday 25 November
I finally made it through exams… After weeks of revising and cramming, I can finally relax a li- Wait. No I can’t. It’s transition now, which means we have two weeks of year 12. Having transition is weird to me because we didn't have it in New Zealand, but I kinda like it. Instead of freaking out about what’s gonna happen next year, we get a head start at the end of this year. I’m finally in my last year of school!

I've been thinking about what I want to do once I leave school. For a while I had my mind set on going to university to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree, and then going on to teach art at high schools, but recently I've been thinking of something a little more achievable; An advanced paramedic. I hadn't really considered a medical career, but after taking Health as a subject, I've realized I really like it. Back in New Zealand my sisters did ‘cadets’ which is a volunteer organisation that teaches children first aid and lifesaving. They always came home with interesting stories about how… ‘They assisted the fire brigade in putting out fires.’ My mum also did a course, to become a trained ambulance officer and she would come home with interesting stories about how trucks rolled right before her eyes, and how she was first on the scene. So once I've finished year 12 I’m thinking of getting training to be a paramedic, and I’m really excited about that. As for the art side of things, I've wanted to get out of it for a while. It’s just something I’m good at , but it isn't something I want to do when I’m older because lately doing art is feeling like an annoying chore and I’m doing everything to avoid it.

This is me at the Mania first aid camp I went on while attending Tauraroa Area School.

Fattys ;)

September 21 2013

So ,there's two things I want to cover tonight. The first is dressing up as fattys and old people and running down the road looking like idiots, and the other is making grapefruit juice in the back yard. Dressing up as fattys; one of our favorite sister activity which consisted of stuffing baggy clothes with pillows and running down the road to Waiotira Primary School in 28 degree heat. We use to do this all the time,Danielle and I would help each other stuff our clothes but when Sophie asked we couldn't be bothered because our fatness made it hard to move. (Must have been hard being the youngest) This one time, Danielle and I mixed up a paste of flour and water and rubbed it onto our faces. When it dried...it dried like old ,cracked skin! Looked exactly like wrinkles, so we stuffed our clothes, grabbed dad's crutches from when he broke his leg in the motorbike accident, and walked across the road to Pete and Jos' to get some Halloween candy. I've probably still got the pictures of that somewhere.

Hot days called for desperate measures. Aside from the Waiotira school pool ,the only way to stay refreshed was to make some grapefruit juice from the tree Henry planted in the back yard. Me and my sisters would pick 20 or 30 grapefruit from the tree ,cut them all individually, and prepare them to be squeezed and made into a very concentrated fruit juice. By the time we had added 9,000,000 cups of sugar to sweeten the mixture ,we were always left with a mountain of fruit scraps ,which would be fed to the pigs.Now...on a hot summers day ,while we were enjoying our grapefruit juice, the pigs would be having a horrible time with diahoroeoa. Weren't we nice. :)

Lately I've noticed that life is honestly a beautiful thing. Nature is beautiful, it's amazing. The sky, the colours, the environment, it is all so stunning and there are no words to describe how fascinating the Earth we live on is. Tonight I saw the moon in a clear sky,and it looked amazing. It was so huge and bright,and the few clouds that were surrounding it were lit up by the brightness of it. We pulled out the huge telescope to have a look when we got home, but it wasn't working / it started to rain as well, so we gave up for the night. I love astronomy. I remember going on the Wellington trip when I was in year 5 and we went to the Carter Observatory ....now that was cool! Well,what I can remember of it.