Foodie Friday

I've had a strange day that has involved pretty much nothing but rowing, sleeping, and eating. After our outing this morning, I went back to bed, and crashed until nearly 3 o'clock. I suppose that's my body telling me it really needed some rest!

In any case, I've had some exciting food exploits.

First of all, this mysterious thing

What is this strange creature? I suppose it just looks like water in a blue cup. However, it's not. It's blue Jell-o! I've become a little obsessed with Jello (or jelly, as we say here) recently, and I'm not sure why. It's an easy snack and I don't feel guilty if I eat three helpings.. The thing is, I usually buy it here, and Sainsbury's sells three flavours of the powdered stuff: Strawberry, Blackcurrant, and Raspberry. All three are good, but they're getting old. I did, however, have an actual Jell-o brand box hiding in the my cupboard, and I decided to make it yesterday. So, today I had blue Jello!

The strange thing is, I think this is the first time in at least ten years I've eaten blue Jell-o and the taste was so instantly transporting it was quite odd actually.

When I woke up from my basically day-consuming nap, I was hungry, obviously, and wanted cookies. (I know that doesn't really follow, that's just how my stomach/mind works). I don't have any cookies in my room (I try and avoid buying them, otherwise I just eat the whole packet. Seriously...) so got creative and googled 'microwave oatmeal cookie.' I have attempted this before actually, but somehow managed to fail. So I tried again! Using this recipe, I managed to produce something pretty delicious. I used frozen fruit instead of raisins, which made it look quite pretty too!

For dinner, creativity was also required as hall was closed this evening for another function. I had booked the BA Rooms (a big room with a massive kitchen for grad students to use. I count as a grad because I'm a 4th year!) so Julia and I decided to cook. We wanted to make soft pretzels using this recipe I stumbled upon, but I failed to read the fine print that asks for the dough to rest for an hour. And we were hungry. So, made some easy pasta - tagiatelle with spinach, garlic and cheese. Yum. (As per usual, this looks distinctly less appetising than it actually was).

At this point, my cooking juices had just been awakened, and I wasn't going to be satisfied until I had used my favourite part of the kitchen - the oven. Baking!! So, I quickly looked through the huge collection of recipes I've bookmarked, and found this one for Fudge Striped Shortbread cookies. Since we were hungry and mooching ingredients from the communal stores (the room is quite well stocked actually), I made a few adaptations/omissions, the main one being that rather than let the cookies cool and drizzle them in chocolate, we just dipped the warm-ish cookies into melted chocolate. Also by this point in the evening, other friends had arrived lured by the promise of baked goods, so I didn't manage a very decent photo. Still, they tasted incredible!

A pretty delicious day!

Tomorrow, I'm off to London with my crew to race the Women's Head of the River Race, down the Thames! It's the same course as the Oxford/Cambridge boat race (which is next week!), except the opposite direction, and it is long. 7k in total, although it's more like 5k of racing because the stream is so fast. Still, not hugely enjoyable on the body. In any case, rowing in London is always really exciting, as is a day out from Cambridge!

I will certainly be bringing my camera! :)