Something To Smile About: Trump Day Edition

Credit to my mum for the very clever hump day/Trump day witticism. It's time for another weekly 'things that made me smile' blog post. This one wasn't as easy to write as last week's one was because it's been quite a long stressful week. After coming back from a relaxing week off, college assignments and revision have taken over seeing as we only have 4 weeks until our Christmas exams. Eeek. Let's not even mention the recent American presidential election result.

Having said that, there were a few key moments this week that put a grin on my face. Without further ado: 

1. Standing on the balcony looking over the estate at the back of our apartment and seeing two dogs walking up the road together, side by side, and then both running into a garden as if they were best friends for life.

2. The fact we only have two Christmas exams and are finished on December 15th. Score.

3. Becoming Class Rep for my course, alongside my friend Oliwia. 

4. This week's free food finds from AIT's Student Union: lemongrass, courgettes, coleslaw, a lovely seedy loaf of bread, and some Tesco Finest stuffing.

5. Looking up at the stars with my boyfriend and having a deep conversation about life, the universe and everything in between.

6. Making a last minute decision to go to Lidl last night - and finding a wet, dirty €20 note on the ground outside.

7. Realising there are some genuinely really nice people out there who do care when you complain about stuff. Faith in humanity restored.

So there's just a few happy moments from my week - did anything happen to you this week that cheered you up? Let me know, and remember, keep smiling. :-)

Recipe: Easiest French Toast Ever

Friday was a good day. Not only did midterm break start, I headed to AIT's Student Union and discovered a basket full of free food sitting on a table, free for any student to pick from it. It turns out Tesco partner with a scheme called FoodCloud where they donate all their short dated/out of date food to those in need, which is such a fantastic idea. In this day and age there's so much food wastage when it could go to the homeless or schemes like this. I picked up a loaf of tiger bread and 2 packets of sprouted seeds from the basket and gleefully brought them home.

The tiger bread was slightly stale on the outside but perfect on the inside, so I thought what better to use it for than some French toast? I had originally planned to make a healthy lunch but French toast always wins.

Without further adieu - and because I hate those recipe posts that spend 14 paragraphs talking about their neighbour's cousin's gerbil's flu due to the snow storm that's been happening recently (I made that up) - here's the recipe. So easy and perfect for brunch!

Ingredients

Plain flour

Milk of your choice (dairy free or normal milk)

Drop of vanilla essence

Sprinkle of cinnamon

Unflavoured oil for frying

Tiger bread or thick loaf

Method

1. Cut the bread into fairly thick (1 or 2 inches, oo-er) slices.

2. Preheat a frying pan with some oil - I used coconut as it provides a nice flavour.

3. Make your batter. To be honest I don't like measuring stuff so I just added about 100ml of milk to a bowl and added flour until it was like a thin pancake batter. I think I added about 4 tbsp of flour. I then added the cinnamon and vanilla and gave it a good whisk until smooth.

4. Coat your bread evenly in the batter and add to the hot pan.

5. Cook until golden brown on both sides. Serve with whatever takes your fancy!

Here's mine, topped with an Alpro Dessert Moments hazelnut & chocolate pudding, crushed almonds, peanut butter and vegan dark chocolate spread. Yum!

I hope you enjoyed this recipe post and try it out for yourself. Let me know if you'd like to see more recipe posts!