New York day six

Day five was spent shopping at Jersey Gardens, and I’m still getting round to taking some photos, so I thought I’d skip ahead to day six as it’s been so long since  I got back.

Friday morning we got the subway down to Brooklyn as one of the things my Dad wanted to do was walk the Brooklyn bridge. We spent the morning wondering around Brooklyn with no purpose, just seeing and exploring, it was lovely. Brooklyn felt a lot calmer than Manhattan and it was nice to have a change of pace.

Highlights in Brooklyn included going on Jane’s Carousel, discovering One Girl Cookies and having the most delicious chocolately vegan cookie that I was sad to see wasn’t in the cook book I ended up buying.

After working up an appetite on the carousel, Dad spotted a busy looking restaurant on the corner full of people going in and out and whilst we’d planned on getting lunch back in the city, seeing somewhere this busy, we knew we’d be silly to miss out!

Belly’s full and tummy’s happy, we set off on a long gentle walk along the Brooklyn bridge, it was definitely worth the journey as the sights of New York from the other side of the river were the stuff movies are made of.

Once back in Manhattan Mum and I hit the shops for a few more purchases, as we hadn’t done enough the day before!, whilst the boys headed to a bar and sampled some local beers. Our final evening in New York was spent watching the Knicks play the Utah Jetts. The basketball was fun, but I enjoyed the ice hockey a little more – they had to work harder to get a goal! But, we did get to watch a proposal on the kisscam, which was good fun!

Cook book challenge | lemon shortbread with fresh rosemary

My first cook from One Girl Cookies book, this recipe was the reason I bought the cook book. Rosemary and lemon shortbread sounded so simple, fresh, summery and delicious that when I had a free Sunday a couple of weeks back I knew this is what I wanted to make.

Ingredients: plain flour//salt//unsalted butter//granulated sugar//grated lemon zest//chopped fresh rosemary//egg//vanilla extract//raw Demerara sugar

Taste: These biscuits are good. Light, fresh and just enough rosemary to know that it’s there, but not enough to overpower. I took them into work with me and they were gone by 10am. That’s a good biscuit.

Time taken: These take a little while as you leave the mixture in the fridge for 30 mins to cool, but I figure that’s enough time to get the first batch of washing up done! Otherwise they’re about 12 minutes to bake, and maybe 20 mins or so to put together the batter, so not too bad.

Likeness to the book: Aside from choosing a different shape cutter to the book I was pretty pleased with how they came out. I’m still not great at knowing how my oven works, so some were a little more golden than others, but I think they all tasted good.

Improvements: None to the recipe apart from my own lemon zesting ability! I think next time they would be great with lavender.

Cost: If you search around a little you can normally find rosemary growing outside so I pinched some from a bush at the top of my road. Lemons are about 30p each, and I everything else aside from the Demerara sugar, which I think was a little over £2, but will last me ages as you only use it to sprinkle on top. So not an expensive one really.

Overall score: 5/5. Loved these little biscuits, and I think they’re going to be my entry to the next WI bake off which sees us doing biscuits!